Paul S. Weiland

As chair of Nossaman's environment and land use group, Weiland's practice encompasses litigation, permitting and compliance counseling for public agencies and publicly regulated utilities, private developers, large landowners and trade associations.

"I've focused on the environmental area for quite awhile now," he said, referring to a recycling program he started as an undergraduate at USC and his term at law school as editor in chief of the Harvard Environmental Law Review. He also spent four years in the environment and natural resources division of the law and policy section of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Weiland was lead counsel on a closely watched endangered species case representing a consortium of farming community groups who have successfully opposed California's decision to protect four species of bumblebees under the Endangered Species Act by classifying them as fish. Almond Alliance of California v. California Fish and Game Commission, 34-2019-80003216 (Sacramento Co. Super. Ct., op. filed Nov. 13, 2020).

The case highlights a complex farm dynamic involving bumblebees and honeybees, with the latter species valuable for pollinating crops. "The state's endangered species act is patterned on its federal counterpart, but the state act does not cover insects," Weiland explained. "So to protect bumblebees, the intervenors who wished to protect them came up with the creative argument that fish are invertebrates covered by the act, and bumblebees are invertebrates, so bumblebees should be protected too. We contended that's a bridge too far." The intervenors include the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and Defenders of Wildlife.

The bees in question, if listed as a protected species, would make compliance difficult because they are so small and hard to distinguish from honeybees that land clearance and other farming practices would suffer, Weiland said.

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge James P. Arguelles agreed, writing, "There is no way that the California Endangered Species Act... can be construed so broadly that it allows the state to protect insects."

"Pollinator management is complicated," Weiland observed.

Weiland was also lead counsel for the New Mexico Department of Fish and Game in its effort to manage its wolf population. An agreement with federal officials to work cooperatively to add captive-born pups to wild packs to supplement the population resulted. The captive-born pups raised in the wild would be less likely to attack pets and livestock than would captive adult wolves released into the wild.

"It's a cross-fostering technique that produces wolves not habituated to people," Weiland said. "It's been a success story."

--John Roemer