June 28, 2018
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Senate today passed a bi-partisan Farm Bill. Despite attempts to attach unpopular anti-environmental riders, the final bill remains focused on widely-supported food and farm policies.
congress
June 25, 2018
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- This week, the US Senate approved its first funding package of the year, a package of 3 funding bills that includes Energy and Water Appropriations bill. Compared to the House passed 3-funding bill minibus last week, the Senate package is largely free from new anti-environmental poison pill riders.
June 8, 2018
WASHINGTON, D.C.-- The Senate today introduced a bipartisan Farm Bill. In stark contrast to the version introduced in the House, the Senate version eschews toxic, anti-environmental provisions in favor of widely-supported measures focused on food and farm policy.
May 18, 2018
The House today failed to pass the 2018 farm bill, though Republicans are vowing to pick the highly partisan legislation up again next week under a motion to reconsider. The bill includes a host of troubling provisions, including weakening the SNAP anti-hunger program, and undermining bedrock environmental safeguards for clean water, wildlife and forests. More than a half dozen measures target millions of acres of pristine national forests for logging. There is also yet another attempt to repeal the Clean Water Rule, which provides certainty and protects waterways feeding the drinking water of 117 million people.
April 25, 2018
The House today is expected to take up the Salmon Extinction Act, HR 3144. The bill will roll back critical protections for endangered salmon, derail salmon recovery alternatives, and undermine bedrock environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act. Thirteen wild salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia and Snake River Basin are currently at risk of extinction, none of which have recovered under the inadequate plans the Salmon Extinction Act would continue.
April 12, 2018
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- House Republicans today released the FY2019 farm bill. The bill weakens the SNAP anti-hunger program and includes provisions undermining bedrock environmental safeguards for clean water, wildlife and forests.
March 15, 2018
Interior Secretary Zinke was on Capitol Hill again today testifying before the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee defending the proposed budget for the Department of the Interior. Sec. Zinke’s answers to Congressional questions largely mirrored those he gave earlier in the week when he blamed the elderly, disabled, veterans, and children for failing to pay for the National Park maintenance backlog, changed his story on opening the country’s coasts to offshore drilling, lectured members he disagreed with, and made clear nothing will be allowed to get in the way of the Trump administration’s vision for the country’s public lands - fossil fuel profits above all else.
March 13, 2018
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on his agency’s proposed budget. Sec. Zinke was visibly angered by Congressional questioning of agency decisions, including rollbacks of national monument protections and expensive private flights, even going so far as to challenge Senators to call his bluffs.
February 6, 2018
More than 240 environmental, animal welfare and conservation organizations sent a letter to House and Senate leadership today, calling on them to reject riders in 2018 Interior Department and Environmental Protection Agency appropriations legislation that would erode the Endangered Species Act and other safeguards for wildlife. The letter comes as Congress is poised to pass yet another continuing resolution that could pave the way for negotiations to begin on a final omnibus appropriations bill for FY 2018. This year’s House and Senate bills currently include provisions that would strip away federal protections for wolves and several other species, choke off funding for listed species if wildlife agencies cannot complete their five-year species reviews on time and block protections for sage-grouse, among many others.
January 8, 2018
The House Natural Resources Committee today will hold a hearing on Rep. John Curtis’ H.R. 4532 “Shash Jaa National Monument and Indian Creek National Monument Act.” The bill would not only codify President Trump’s illegal cuts to Bears Ears National Monument but also delegate management of the monument to local officials and tribal representatives hand-picked by the Utah delegation, foregoing input from Tribal governments. Management plans laid out in the bill exclude three of the five tribes that advocated for Bears Ears protection.
January 5, 2018
Today, the Washington Post reported that, in addition to passing a tax bill containing enormous giveaways to the oil and gas industry, Congressional Republicans quietly gave yet another gift to Big Oil when they allowed a tax on oil companies that funded federal oil-spill response efforts to expire.
December 15, 2017
Protect the Arctic Refuge. The message illuminated Trump International Hotel sending a hard to miss directive to Republican leaders in Washington, D.C. currently rushing through the tax scheme. The plan seeks to offset tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate polluters with revenue from drilling in the Arctic Refuge’s coastal plain-- an area vital for the survival of the Gwich’in Nation, and one of the country’s last remaining wild places.