( September 5, 2025, 11:17 AM EDT) -- SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has issued a formal mandate enforcing a panel’s split decision that “largely” affirmed a lower court’s order granting 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 mandate was issued following the Ninth Circuit’s denial of a petition for rehearing en banc in which environmental and Native American groups said the decision was “contrary to Ninth Circuit precedent.”...