News & Updates

The Western Environmental Law Center has learned of an error in a press release from 2011 regarding the use of rotenone by the U.S. Forest Service. Rotenone is a chemical that kills fish and is used to eradicate invasive species in order to restore native fish in...

Conservation groups filed formal objections today to the Biden administration’s plans to offer 734,000 acres of public lands for oil and gas leasing amid what the president himself has called a climate “code red.” Oil and gas in the proposed leases contain up to 246...

Today, the Biden administration announced it will resume oil and gas leasing on federal public lands and waters to comply with a preliminary injunction in the legal challenge brought against the climate-centered pause by the state of Louisiana. However, the federal...

Local community groups have engaged in the proceedings at the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission to elevate the often-marginalized voices of impacted communities and to ensure dedicated just transition funding, commitments for ongoing engagement from the Public...

Sixteen youth plaintiffs who are suing the state of Montana for violating their constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment secured a critical victory Wednesday after Judge Kathy Seeley denied the state’s attempt to prevent their case, Held v. State of...

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission today approved a petition filed by five conservation groups to give marbled murrelets more protection by reclassifying them from threatened to endangered under the state’s Endangered Species Act. The 4-3 decision comes two years...

Yesterday, as record-setting heat threatened the sustainability of Washington’s water resources, a three-judge panel of the Washington Court of Appeals unanimously invalidated the Washington State Department of Ecology’s (“Ecology’s”) waste discharge permits for...

A federal district court yesterday rejected crucial aspects of the revised forest plan for the Flathead National Forest in northwest Montana for failing to adequately assess conservation needs for threatened grizzly bears and bull trout. Specifically, the court...

Today, the US House of Representatives passed (229 to 191) a resolution that would reinstate the Environmental Protection Agency's 2016 methane pollution safeguards for the oil and gas industry. The Senate passed a similar resolution in April. Methane, the primary...

Climate, indigenous and conservation groups today called on the Biden administration to halt new drilling permits and to cancel unlawful Trump-era oil and gas leases on public lands. The letter urges the Interior Department to enact a range of interim actions to...