( June 17, 2025, 2:57 PM EDT) -- SAN FRANCISCO — A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on June 16 “largely” affirmed a lower court’s order that granted summary judgment for government defendants in a hydraulic fracturing dispute related to the Willow Project, a fracking operation in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The majority remanded the case without vacatur, holding that some aspects of the government’s approval of the project were “arbitrary and capricious” but that other elements of the decision complied with federal law....