News & Updates
Missed opportunity for climate, progress for conservation in BLM management plan for the Colorado River Valley and Grand Junction field offices
Today, the Bureau of Land Management released its proposed resource management plan/final supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) for the Colorado River Valley and Grand Junction field offices, which will determine how 2 million acres of land in western...
Petitioners file motion to press Montana Public Service Commission to fulfill duty to consider climate
A subset of petitioners who requested that the Montana Public Service Commission (PSC) comply with its statutory and constitutional duty to consider the impacts of climate change in its regulation of gas and electric utilities has filed a writ of mandamus requesting...
BLM safeguards 98.9% of Sonoran Desert National Monument, its Indigenous resources, desert life from recreational shooting
Late yesterday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced it will close 480,496 acres (98.9%) of Sonoran Desert National Monument to recreational shooting, once allowed everywhere within this quiet oasis of saguaro cacti, native desert life, ancient petroglyphs,...
Conservation groups celebrate plan to restore grizzly bears to North Cascades
Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s rule to restore grizzly bears in Washington’s North Cascades went into effect. The agency passed the rule under section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act, which allows it to establish experimental populations of listed...
Wildlife Groups initiate legal action: Feds too slow to protect Sonoran desert tortoise
Today, WildEarth Guardians, Western Watersheds Project, and the Desert Tortoise Council and Tucson Herpetological Society, represented by the Western Environmental Law Center, are asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife to reconsider its 2022 decision to deny protective...
Biden administration to end coal leasing in Powder River Basin
The Biden administration announced today that it will end coal leasing in the Powder River Basin – the largest coal-producing region in the U.S. The decision represents an historic shift in federal management of coal in the region, recognizing that the market has...
Conservation groups intervene against Signal Peak’s lawsuit seeking to rush review of nation’s largest underground coal mine
Today, conservation groups simultaneously moved to intervene and dismiss a lawsuit brought by Signal Peak Energy, which is seeking to force the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) to rush the environmental review of a proposed...
Bedrock community, environmental law modernization will supercharge just transition, environmental justice
Early this morning, the Biden administration’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) completed a two-phased effort to modernize rules implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a bedrock community and environmental protection law in the U.S. The final...
Organizations call on Biden administration to responsibly site solar development
The Biden administration is moving to the next development stage on a proposed plan that could reshape renewable energy deployment across the West. Today marked the closing of the public comment period on the administration’s draft plan to update the Western Solar...
Landmark federal public lands rule elevates conservation
Today, the Biden administration’s Bureau of Land Management released a final rule elevating the role of conservation in public lands management to match uses like fossil fuel extraction, improving the balance of its multiple-use mission. The Bureau manages 40% of all...
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