Protecting America’s Public Lands and Waters from Drilling

Photo by Loren Blackford
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of America's last truly wild places and must be preserved. | Photo by Loren Blackford

Public lands and waters should never be threatened by oil and gas drilling. We work to protect these special places from legislative assaults and federal regulatory rollbacks that threaten to open them up to exploitation by the fossil fuel industry.

April 14, 2021

WASHINGTON—More than 200 climate, Native American, religious, business and conservation organizations today called on the Biden administration to do a comprehensive environmental review to align federal fossil fuel programs with U.S. climate goals to curb global warming.

March 24, 2021

Washington, DC— Today, the Department of the Interior is hosting the first public forum on the agency’s oil and gas leasing program. The panel comes during the Biden administration’s pause on new leasing offshore and on public lands, and will bring together stakeholders from across the country to discuss impacts of the current leasing system.

March 23, 2021

Conservation groups in the Pacific Northwest filed a legal challenge to reinstate federal protections on more than 3.4 million acres of federal old-growth forests, which are essential for the survival of the threatened northern spotted owl. The lawsuit asks the court to reject a rule issued in the last days of the Trump administration that eliminated one-third of the critical habitat protections for the species. The nonprofit law firms Earthjustice and Western Environmental Law Center represent Audubon Society of Portland, Cascadia Wildlands, Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation…

March 23, 2021

Fresno, Calif.— Conservation groups sued the Bureau of Land Management today over the Trump administration’s rushed sale of seven oil and gas leases on public lands in Kern County, California.

15 de marzo de 2021

El Senado confirmó hoy a Deb Haaland para liderar el Departamento del Interior. Haaland es la primera indígena en ser miembro del gabinete federal.

March 15, 2021

The Senate today confirmed Deb Haaland to lead the Department of the Interior. Haaland is the first Native American to hold a cabinet position.

March 15, 2021

Today Rep. Grijalva introduced the Save Oak Flat Act to permanently protect the Oak Flat area of Tonto National Forest from destructive mining proposals.

February 28, 2021

The Biden administration has withdrawn a Final Environmental Impact Statement and decision that would facilitate the transfer of ownership of Oak Flat, a sacred land to at least a dozen Indigenous Tribes, to a mining company with ties to the destruction of an Aboriginal site in Australia. The move follows years of opposition from Apache-Stronghold, the San Carlos Apache Tribe, the Inter Tribal Association of Arizona, and other Tribal entities, religious leaders, locals, and environmental groups.

February 26, 2021

Today, the US House of Representatives passed the Protecting America’s Wilderness and Public Lands Act in a xx-xx vote— a package of conservation bills that will collectively protect 2.7 million acres of wild lands, waters, green space and recreation areas across the country. Read the bills included in the package and support from organizations here. The bill now heads to the Senate.

February 22, 2021

The Nevada Assembly introduced yesterday AJR3, a resolution in support of protecting 30 percent of the lands and waters in Nevada by 2030 as a necessary step to protect natural systems and mitigate the climate and extinction crises. The resolution also calls for the establishment of the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument and the permanent protection of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge from the threat of military expansion.