BOISE, ID — BlueRibbon Coalition (BRC) and BRC Member John Stewart today filed a Motion for Leave to Intervene with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Center for Biological Diversity, et al. v. United States Bureau of Land Management, et al. (Case No. 26-2596). The motion asks the court to recognize BRC and Stewart as defendant-intervenors in the federal government's appeal of a district court order that imposed sweeping closures of off-highway vehicle (OHV) routes across the Western Mojave (WEMO) Desert.
The motion follows the United States Department of Justice's Notice of Appeal, filed on behalf of the Federal Defendants, including the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM), of the January 23, 2026 order issued by Judge Susan Illston in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. That order vacated portions of BLM's 2019 Record of Decision and required the closure of approximately 2,200 miles of motorized routes beyond even the most restrictive alternative the agency analyzed in its environmental review. The order reduces the WEMO open-route network from approximately 6,247 miles to roughly 4,047 miles, eliminating about 73 percent of the original 15,235-mile network and rendering between one and 1.5 million acres of public land largely inaccessible to motorized recreation.
This litigation has spanned two decades. BLM finalized its first WEMO travel plan in 2006. Environmental groups immediately challenged it, and Judge Illston ruled in 2009 that BLM failed to follow the minimization criteria under 43 C.F.R. § 8342.1, ordering a complete redo. BLM began a second planning process in 2011 and completed a revised plan in 2019 that closed roughly 10,000 miles while leaving approximately 6,247 open.
The Center for Biological Diversity and co-plaintiffs filed the current lawsuit in November 2021. The district court granted partial summary judgment in October 2024 and issued its remedial order in January 2026 which resulted in one of the largest OHV closures in American history.
BRC first moved to intervene at the district court level on April 15, 2026. That motion was not decided before the case was appealed. Following the federal government's Notice of Appeal, BRC filed today's motion to secure party status at the Ninth Circuit.
No party currently in this case represents the interests of OHV users. The plaintiffs, led by the Center for Biological Diversity, sought the closures. The Federal Defendants are tasked with defending BLM's administrative process and balancing multiple land uses; they cannot advocate specifically for motorized recreation.
"The federal government's appeal is important, but it does not solve the representation problem,” explained Ben Burr, Executive Director, BlueRibbon Coalition. “BLM's lawyers will defend the agency's administrative process. They are not in a position to stand up for the riders, the families, the veterans, and the small business owners who lost access to the West Mojave because of this order. That is our job. We filed today because the people who use these lands deserve a seat at the table, and we intend to make sure they have one."
BRC's motion identifies specific legal issues it intends to raise on appeal that the federal government is unlikely to press. These include the order's treatment of OHV recreation relative to other categories of access that remain open under the same order; the district court's application of the National Environmental Policy Act in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2025 decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County; and an internal inconsistency in the district court's analysis of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act that affects the scope of relief and future agency action.
The Federal Land Policy and Management Act, enacted in 1976, expressly directs that California desert resources be managed for multiple uses, "including the use, where appropriate, of off-road recreational vehicles" (43 U.S.C. § 1781). BRC asserts that without intervention, the OHV community will have no dedicated voice in the appellate courtroom and no procedural tool to keep these issues before the court if the federal government narrows its arguments, settles, or withdraws the appeal.
"This case will be decided on questions of NEPA and FLPMA that carry real consequences for OHV users across the West,” said Isabella Eldridge, Staff Attorney, BlueRibbon Coalition. “The Supreme Court's decision in Seven County changed the legal framework for evaluating agency compliance with NEPA, and the district court's order does not account for that. Our motion ensures those arguments are properly before the Ninth Circuit and that the interests Congress recognized in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act are represented by someone whose sole purpose is to defend them."
BRC was represented in the filing by Staff Attorney Isabella Eldridge and by J. Gage Marchini of White Brenner LLP.
