The wins, unfortunately, tend to be random, as a result of the sorry state of our environmental law. The people at the EPA don't target oil pipelines for rerouting due to beetles instead of focusing on whether fracking is polluting groundwater because they care so much about beetles, or because they've already won on everything more important. Industry takes examples like this to show "look at how out of control the EPA has gotten!" because bystanders thing: "gee, I care about the environment, but all that work to protect a few beetles is a bit much!"
But that paints a misleading picture. The EPA goes for the beetles because the Endangered Species Act is one of the few laws with bright-line rules that hasn't been watered down over the last 30-40 years. That makes it a good tactical hammer. They've got a limited budget, and they need to hit things like this that are a slam-dunk in court instead of broader issues that could get mired for years in debates between expert witnesses and thousands of reports being thrown back and forth.
But that paints a misleading picture. The EPA goes for the beetles because the Endangered Species Act is one of the few laws with bright-line rules that hasn't been watered down over the last 30-40 years. That makes it a good tactical hammer. They've got a limited budget, and they need to hit things like this that are a slam-dunk in court instead of broader issues that could get mired for years in debates between expert witnesses and thousands of reports being thrown back and forth.