News & Updates

The U.S. Department of Agriculture today opened an official rulemaking process to rescind the Roadless Rule, an extremely popular conservation policy enacted in 2001 to protect  more than 45 million acres of pristine lands in national forests across 36 states and...

Today, a coalition of environmental groups, Tribal leaders, and experts submitted testimony to the New Mexico Oil Conservation Commission in support of long-overdue reforms to the state’s oil and gas rules to prevent “abandoned wells,” wells that operators abandon...

Today, the Western Environmental Law Center requested the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission (WQCC) reconsider holding a hearing on a rulemaking petition filed by an oil and gas industry-led organization that would allow treated fracking wastewater—called...

Today, a federal district court in Missoula ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) when it determined that gray wolves in the western U.S. do not warrant federal protections. Today’s ruling means  that the Service’s...

Our Children’s Trust, Western Environmental Law Center, Gregory Law Group, and McGarvey Law are proud to announce that they have been awarded Public Justice’s 2025 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award for their landmark victory in Held v. State of Montana—the first...

Today, as the climate and biodiversity crises rage across America, Reps. Westerman and Golden introduced the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act. Under the guise of streamlining infrastructure permitting, the proposed law takes an...

A coalition of 27 western conservation groups sent a letter to Rep. Huffman and the members of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources advising all to exercise extreme caution on permitting reform in advance of a July 22 hearing titled “Permitting Purgatory:...

On the eve of Independence Day, Republicans have passed an enormously unpopular bill (2-1 against) designed to transfer wealth from the poorest Americans to the richest 20% who already own 85% of the nation’s wealth. The bill will ravage America’s social safety net,...

Yesterday, federal agencies began publishing en masse radical changes to National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) rules and policies significantly weakening and in some instances entirely eliminating otherwise longstanding protections essential to federal agency...

In an extreme overreach that will destroy treasured national forests, the Trump administration today announced plans to rescind the Roadless Rule, a popular, science-based provision limiting commercial logging and associated road construction in undisturbed...