Today Ryan Zinke’s Department of the Interior is wrapping up oil and gas leasing on public lands near the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument. Though the administration walked back the initial leasing proposal, which also included areas near Yellowstone National Park, today’s leases remain a threat to protected public lands and big game herds in an area prized for its elk.
Today, the Department of the Interior announced plans to speed up efforts to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The effort would give the area over to the oil industry, ignoring the place’s importance to the Gwich’in Nation, the permanence of drilling damage to one of the country’s last wild places, and the irreversible climate impacts in a state already warming at twice the rate of the rest of the country.
Today, in his remarks at an energy conference in Houston, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke made his preference for supporting the oil and gas industry over protecting our public lands and waters clear.
Yesterday, the Department of the Interior announced the cancellation of an oil and gas lease sale near Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a UNESCO Heritage Site in northern New Mexico. The controversial leases would have auctioned off an additional 4,434 acres in the Greater Chaco region for industrialized fracking, exposing local communities to increased pollution and threatening ancient ruins considered sacred by Indigenous Nations.
Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a proposal to gut a key safeguard that would limit methane pollution from oil and gas drilling operations. This is the first major air rule proposal to come out of the Trump administration.
Represented by Trustees for Alaska, Sierra Club and other conservation groups today challenged Interior Secretary Zinke’s recent approval of a land exchange to facilitate road construction through wilderness lands in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Zinke’s approval ignores deep flaws in the road building plan, including its exorbitant cost, high winter use risks, and detrimental impacts on the wildlife of the refuge and the Alaska Native subsistence it supports.
Advocates plan for huge anti-border wall event in Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge.
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.
Utahns protest Bears Ears changes.
Trump is using U.S. tax dollars to fund his anti-environment, cruel agenda.
Big oil's contribution in Senate soon to pay off.
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.