News & Updates
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...
Lawsuit seeks Interior Department documents behind oil, gas leasing report
Climate and conservation groups sued the U.S. Interior Department on Friday for failing to release public records, including documents behind the development of a federal oil and gas leasing report, related to President Biden’s 2021 executive order to address climate...
Court orders protection of sensitive habitat on Clearwater National Forest
On March 13, U.S. District Court Judge Winmill ruled that the Forest Service violated its Clearwater National Forest Plan as well as the U.S Forest Service’s Travel Management Rule for the area in allowing motorized vehicles into the Fish Lake part of the proposed...
Game of Groans: Fossil fuel lobbyist appointed to New Mexico Game Commission
Today, an oil and gas lobbyist appointed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham joined the New Mexico Game Commission. In a move that only intensifies the conservation community’s frustration towards the Commission and the Lujan Grisham administration, the governor selected a...
Lawsuit targets EPA’s failure to protect Washington’s endangered salmon, orcas, trout from cyanide pollution
The Center for Biological Diversity and Western Environmental Law Center sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today over its failure to protect Chinook and coho salmon, southern resident killer whales, steelhead trout and bull trout from the effects of toxic...
Groups announce intent to sue feds over threats to Shasta River coho salmon
Today, on behalf of the Friends of the Shasta River and Environmental Protection Information Center, the Western Environmental Law Center notified the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) of the groups’ intent to...
BLOCKBUSTER: Judge restores gray wolf protections, reviving federal recovery efforts
Today, a federal court restored Endangered Species Act protections for the gray wolf after they were eliminated by the Trump administration in 2020. The ruling orders the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to resume recovery efforts for the imperiled species. Today’s...
Conservation groups challenge North Umpqua post-fire logging plan
Today, Cascadia Wildlands, Oregon Wild, and the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center (KS Wild) filed suit challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Archie Creek post-fire logging plans. The agency plans to log mature and old-growth stands on public land along the...
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