News & Updates

Environmental advocates, local landowners move to protect water, climate in Montana

May 15, 2018

Great Falls – Today, WildEarth Guardians, the Montana Environmental Information Center, and three local landowners moved to protect Montana’s clean water and climate from oil and gas drilling and fracking. The groups, represented by Western Environmental Law Center...

Lawsuit targets federal shell game hiding fracking’s harm to Colorado communities, wildlife

Apr 26, 2018

DENVER— Conservation groups today sued Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and the Bureau of Land Management for approving new leases to allow fracking on more than 45,000 acres in western Colorado, including within communities and within a half-mile of a K-12 public...

Court case leads Bureau of Land Management to defer oil and gas leases covering over 100,000 acres in Montana

Apr 25, 2018

GREAT FALLS, Mont. – Today, the Bureau of Land Management in Montana deferred all 223 parcels subject to an oil and gas lease sale planned for June 12. The decision to postpone the lease sale results from a court decision last month finding the Miles City (Montana)...

Washington wildlife and waters saved from neurotoxic pesticides

Apr 9, 2018

Today, the Washington Department of Ecology sided with Center for Food Safety and numerous other community and conservation groups, and denied shellfish growers a permit to spray imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid, on shellfish beds on Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor, in...

Groups appeal court stay of BLM methane waste rule

Apr 5, 2018

Conservation groups today appealed a federal District Court judge in Wyoming's stay of 2016 methane waste rule implementation. The 2016 rule compels oil and gas companies operating on public lands to take reasonable measures to prevent the waste of methane, the...

Court rejects flawed Mexican wolf management rule: Capping population, killing more wolves, cutting off habitat undermines recovery

Apr 3, 2018

TUCSON—Today, a judge ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ("Service") to go back to the drawing board on its deeply flawed 2015 Mexican wolf management rule. The court rejected the Service’s distortion of science to fit the political goals of increasing...

Court finds fracking approvals in Greater Chaco violate cultural protections

Apr 2, 2018

Santa Fe, NM – Over the weekend, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico issued a "preview" order indicating it will soon rule in favor of advocate groups challenging hundreds of federal fracking approvals in the Greater Chaco region on...

Court rejects BLM plans to mine 10 billion tons of coal, install thousands of oil and gas wells over 15 million acres in Powder River Basin

Mar 26, 2018

GREAT FALLS, Mont. – On Friday, a federal court found a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plan allowing coal mining and oil and gas drilling on over 15 million acres of public land and mineral rights in Montana and Wyoming to be unlawful. The court found that BLM failed...

Conservation groups petition to end Enloe Dam hydropower license

Mar 16, 2018

River advocacy groups filed a petition in federal court today against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) challenging its recent decision to extend construction deadlines on the Enloe Hydroelectric Project on the Similkameen River in north-central...

BLM defers fracking around New Mexico’s sacred Chaco Canyon

Mar 2, 2018

Taos, NM – Late yesterday, the Bureau of Land Management announced its decision to defer an oil and gas lease sale of 4,434.37 acres near Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, for consultation with Tribal and local leaders. The surprise...