News & Updates
Landmark court ruling will protect water sources, ranchers near Bull Mountains underground coal mine
A federal judge in Montana District Court has halted the mining of federal coal at Signal Peak Energy’s Bull Mountains Underground Coal Mine near Roundup, pending a thorough analysis of the mine’s impacts on ranchers, vital water sources, and the surrounding...
Legal filing targets North Dakota’s latest lawsuit to force more oil and gas lease sales on public lands
Climate and conservation groups defended the Biden administration in a brief filed today responding to a lawsuit brought by North Dakota seeking to force the federal government to hold more oil and gas lease sales in the state. North Dakota sued last month, claiming...
Conservation groups to defend Biden administration postponement of oil, gas lease sales
Seventeen groups represented by Earthjustice and the Western Environmental Law Center moved to intervene (legal documents available at end of release, one for each case) today to defend the Biden administration’s postponement of several oil and gas lease sales. A...
Federal appeals court rejects oil and gas drilling and fracking in northwest New Mexico’s Greater Chaco region
A federal appeals court yesterday rejected the Biden administration’s defense of unchecked oil and gas fracking in the Greater Chaco region of northwest New Mexico, ruling the U.S. Interior Department flouted the law when approving 199 drilling permits in the...
Lawsuit filed to defend climate, clean air from fracking in NM Permian
Conservation groups, led by citizens from Carlsbad, N.M., filed suit today to overturn the Biden administration’s approval of nearly 6,000 acres of oil and gas leases in southeast New Mexico’s Permian Basin. Originally authorized by the Trump administration, the...
Federal wildlife-killing program challenged in Montana
Today, four conservation organizations challenged the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Wildlife Services predator killing program in Montana. The legal challenge also includes the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service for approving the program's killing and removal...
Legal appeal: Ecology’s rewrite of industrial dairy permits endangers public health; threatens waterways, aquifers, ecosystems across WA
Late last week, community, environmental, and food safety advocates challenged two permits that will allow industrial animal feeding operations to continue to discharge pollution into Washington’s waters. A unanimous 2021 Washington Court of Appeals decision required...
Legal complaint: Signal Peak Energy coal mine has damaged and destroyed Bull Mountains water sources
Conservation groups have filed a formal complaint with state and federal agencies against Signal Peak Energy, a criminally-convicted coal company operating an underground coal mine in the Bull Mountains just north of Billings, Montana. The complaint cites evidence of...
Forest Service committee recruitment signals upcoming forest plan changes
Today, the Forest Service announced it will establish a Northwest Forest Plan Federal Advisory Committee “to provide advice and recommendations on landscape management approaches that promote sustainability, climate change adaptations, and wildfire resilience while...
Proposed BLM methane waste rule less disappointing than expected, could be much better
Weeks after President Biden’s remarks at the COP27 climate conference in Egypt and following nearly 18 months of internal agency deliberations, conservation groups expressed their disappointment today in the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) proposed rule to prevent...
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