News & Updates
88 groups offer Biden roadmap to open new doors to thriving, resilient future transition by winding down federal public lands, minerals oil, gas program
The world is facing a set of intersecting crises, from Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine, to consumer hardship at the gas pump caused by dependency on fossil fuels, to ever-intensifying climate impacts. To address these crises, the Western Environmental Law Center...
Legal agreement: Land managers will reconsider allowing target shooting in 90% of Sonoran Desert National Monument, providing opportunity to protect desert life, cultural resources
Late yesterday, the Arizona District Court in Phoenix approved a legal agreement requiring the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to re-examine its decision to allow target shooting in 90% of Sonoran Desert National Monument, a quiet oasis of saguaro cacti, native desert...
Biden administration takes steps to conserve old forests on federal public lands critical to climate adaptation, mitigation
Today on Earth Day, President Biden announced his administration would consider a path to ending logging of late-successional and old-growth forests on public lands. The Western Environmental Law Center, an organization that has worked since its founding in 1993...
White House NEPA Phase One Final Rule: Important first step, next phase crucial
Today, in a necessary first step, the Biden administration’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) finalized Phase One rulemaking for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), restoring some protections removed by the previous administration. However, many...
Biden administration to restart oil, gas leasing on public lands
The Bureau of Land Management announced today it will resume oil and gas leasing on public lands, violating Biden’s campaign promise to end new oil and gas leasing and locking in new extraction that thwarts his pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Despite its...
New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board adopts nation-leading air pollution rules for oil and gas operators
Conservation, public health, and community leaders from across New Mexico today applauded the Environmental Improvement Board’s (EIB) preliminary approval of final ozone precursor regulations for oil and gas production and processing. This includes nation-leading...
SCOTUS abuses emergency powers to diminish state, Tribal Clean Water Act autonomy, forcing advocates back to lower court
Today, the Supreme Court of the U.S. used its emergency docket to revive a Trump Administration Clean Water Act rule that sidelined states, Tribes, and the public in permitting decisions for large projects affecting water. SCOTUS provided no reasoning for its decision...
Advocates secure agreement from Interior to reconsider fracking on 45,000 sacred acres in Greater Chaco
In response to legal action from a coalition of organizations, the Biden administration today agreed to review the Trump administration’s illegal approval of fracking on nearly 45,000 acres—70 square miles—of the Greater Chaco region of northwest New Mexico and to...
9th Circuit Court strikes down Trump-era underground coal mine expansion
A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ panel ruled Trump's Office of Surface Mining (OSM) wrongly approved an expansion of Signal Peak’s Bull Mountain Underground Coal Mine near Roundup, Montana. OSM largely ignored the fact that the proposed 175-million-ton expansion...
Electron Dam operator signs agreement with conservationists to protect threatened Puyallup River salmon, steelhead, and bull trout
A coalition of conservation groups has reached an agreement with the operators of the Electron hydroelectric project on the Puyallup River to preserve safeguards for threatened Chinook salmon, steelhead, and bull trout. The groups had sued over the facility’s illegal...
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