WASHINGTON, DC -- Though not yet made public, news reports today indicate Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke submitted to the White House his final recommendation on the future of public lands and waters currently protected for this and future generations as national monuments. The recommendation, which is reported to include “boundary adjustments,” follows an executive order from President Trump opening national monuments for review -- with the clear intent to sell-out public lands to special interests.
LINCOLN, NE-- Today, Donald Trump’s EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is expected to be in Lincoln, NE for a “secret meeting” with Jim Macy, the head of Nebraska’s Department of Environmental Quality and potentially the Governor as well, though the Governor’s office refused to confirm or comment.
In response, John Crabtree, Sierra Club’s Campaign Representative in Nebraska released the following statement:
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Donald Trump’s Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry, released a controversial grid report in an effort to pressure market operators, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and utilities to bail out aging coal and nuclear plants by forcing electricity customers to pay more for their expensive electricity.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Tomorrow Bay Area residents will rally in front of the Department of the Interior’s San Francisco offices to push back on Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s expected recommendations to erase public lands protections. Tomorrow is the deadline for Zinke to make recommendations on multiple national monuments, including those protecting forests, marine areas and archaeological sites. Seven monuments in California are among those on the list. The recommendations follow an executive order from President Trump in May.
NEW YORK CITY-- The nine Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) states officially announced their proposed update to the program, establishing limits on carbon pollution from the region’s power plants through 2030. The states modeled three different scenarios for the future of the program and decided on a 30 percent reduction by 2030 from 2020 levels.
LANSING, Mich. - The Lansing Board of Water and Light (LBWL) will stop burning fossil fuels at its coal-fired Erickson Generating Station by December 2025 and commit to specific clean energy investments, under a settlement agreement announced today by Sierra Club. The agreement settles claims of Clean Air Act violations at LBWL’s Erickson and Eckert Generating Stations in Lansing, Michigan.
OAKLAND,CA -- Today, Sierra released an in-depth look at the effects of a U.S. border wall on the Southwest’s recovering jaguar population. The story discusses the threats of migration routes— an absolute essential for the spectacular species— if cut off by a border wall. Mark’s account provides a truly personal and on-the-ground account of his time spent in the borderlands and emphasizes the grave risks of wildlife depletion in the wake of wall construction.
Tucson, AZ—Today, Donald Trump will visit the U.S.-Mexico border near Yuma to pose with border walls and Border Patrol agents. He is expected to continue pushing funding for a wall as a political prop in his extremist agenda. Trump again will likely say that billions of dollars are needed for fences, walls, sensors, agents and equipment while failing to address root causes of human migration and smuggling.
Washington, DC -- Today, the U.S. District Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) failed to adequately review the environmental impacts of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the fracked gas Sabal Trail pipeline, which runs more than 500 miles through Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
OAKLAND, CA – Today, Sierra magazine, the national magazine of the Sierra Club, released its eleventh annual “Cool Schools” ranking of North America’s greenest colleges and universities. Sierra received complete surveys from a record-breaking 227 schools -- in 36 states, the District of Columbia, and for the first time ever, Canada.