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.
BAKERSFIELD, Calif.— The Trump administration today announced a proposal to open more than 1 million acres of public lands and minerals in central California to oil drilling and fracking. The plan, first floated in draft form in April, would end a more than five-year moratorium on leasing federal public land in the state to oil companies.
Washington, DC -- Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed two key conservation measures: the Chaco Cultural Heritage Area Protection Act (H.R. 2181), which would ban new leasing on federal lands within a 10-mile buffer zone surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park, and the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act (H.R. 1373), which would make permanent a moratorium on new uranium mining on one million acres of public lands north and south of the Grand Canyon. In response, Sierra Club leaders from New Mexico and Arizona issued the following statements:
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors today issued a proclamation recognizing the 25th anniversary of the California Desert Protection Act. The proclamation celebrates the many contributions protected desert lands make to the local economy and quality of life. Supervisor Kathryn Barger, whose Supervisorial District 5 is home to important protected desert lands, brought forth the proclamation.
Can business development and the environment be balanced? What are local best practices that can be modeled? How do business owners help avert an environmental crisis while still minding the bottom line? Join community and business leaders Wednesday, Oct. 30 to hear and discuss insights into what’s possible and what’s already being done at the intersection of sustainable business development and healthy, resilient communities.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The US House of Representatives today passed legislation to finally reform the Mining Law of 1872. The legislation provides the first update to the mining laws since the time of pick and shovel miners.
Bureau of Land Management employees could get relocation orders in a matter of weeks according to news broken by The Hill. An email obtained by The Hill from acting BLM director William Pendley shows that the agency’s relocation could be completed in just five months.
MARINA, Calif.— The Trump administration today dismissed protests and made a formal decision to open 725,500 acres of public lands and mineral estate across California’s Central Coast and the Bay Area to new oil and gas drilling and fracking. The public lands the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has earmarked for leasing are in the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, Merced, Monterey, San Benito, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Stanislaus.
SALT LAKE CITY -- Today marks the end of a public comment period for the Trump administration’s proposed management plan for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The plan, being pushed forward despite ongoing legal challenges to the administration’s efforts to shrink the monument, opens significant portions of the remaining monument to dirty fuel development. More than 8,000 public comments were submitted in opposition to the Trump administration’s plan.
Western Environmental Law Center, Wilderness Workshop, Western Colorado Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Sierra Club recently won an important victory in Federal District Court. The lawsuit challenged BLM’s 2015 Resource Management Plan (the plan) for the Colorado River Valley Field Office (CRVFO). The suit contested the plan’s prioritization of oil and gas development over all other uses, as well as BLM’s failure to consider the climate impacts of drilling thousands of new gas wells on our local public lands.
The Trump administration is considering recommendations provided by the uranium mining industry that would open public lands surrounding Grand Canyon to uranium mining and directly threaten tribal lands, including the Bears Ears National Monument.