Nov 10, 2022 | News Release
This month, conservation groups finalized a legal agreement with the Bureau of Land Management to reverse a Trump-era rule excluding vastly more logging in post-fire landscapes from detailed environmental review. The agreement resolves a legal challenge the groups...
Nov 7, 2022 | News Release
The Biden administration is working against U.S. climate goals and failing to protect communities, water and wildlife by auctioning oil and gas leases on public lands under the Inflation Reduction Act, climate and conservationists said in formal comments submitted...
Nov 1, 2022 | News Release
The Center for Civic Policy, Naeva, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) today announced they have filed to intervene in an appeal filed by the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico (IPANM) with the New Mexico Court...
Nov 1, 2022 | News Release
The Western Environmental Law Center is thrilled to announce the addition of two new powerhouse environmental advocates to its leadership. Sristi Kamal joins the group today in the newly created position of deputy director. Sarah McMillan will begin as Wildlife and...
Oct 27, 2022 | News Release, Protecting Chaco Canyon From Fracking
Today, a group of Diné and conservation groups challenged the Biden administration’s approval of fracking on nearly 45,000 acres—70 square miles—of the Greater Chaco region of northwest New Mexico. In April, the groups entered a legal agreement with the Biden...
Oct 4, 2022 | News Release
Late Friday, a judge in the District Court for the District of Oregon ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) justification for Bureau of Land Management (Bureau) timber sales totaling nearly 18,000 acres including in old growth forest violated the...
Oct 3, 2022 | News Release
Late Friday, Billings Federal District Court Judge Susan Watters ruled that a massive expansion of the Rosebud coal strip-mine was approved illegally. The expansion was approved in June 2019 by the federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM), and allowed Western Rosebud...
Oct 3, 2022 | News Release, Protecting Mexican Wolves
Today, wildlife advocates filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for its failure to adopt an adequate management rule for recovering the critically endangered population of Mexican gray wolves as required by the Endangered Species Act. The...
Sep 29, 2022 | News Release, Protecting Chaco Canyon From Fracking
Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit heard oral arguments related to the Trump administration’s illegal approval of more than 370 drilling permits in the Greater Chaco region of northwest New Mexico. Attorneys with the Biden administration defended...
Sep 22, 2022 | News Release
Yesterday, Sen. Manchin released the text of his Inflation Reduction Act-affiliated dirty deal. The bill, drafted with the American Petroleum Institute, is based on a false narrative that weakening bedrock environmental laws (namely the National Environmental Policy...