News & Updates

Groups challenge new rule nullifying compliance obligations under BLM methane rule

Dec 19, 2017

After defeats in court and in Congress, the Trump administration is now attempting to suspend for one year almost all of the requirements of its Methane Waste Prevention Rule that would reduce waste of publicly owned natural gas by oil and gas companies. Today,...

Methane rule suspended for one year: Trump administration shifts waste costs to taxpayers

Dec 7, 2017

Tomorrow, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management will finalize a one-year suspension of a regulation adopted just a year ago to reduce methane waste on public lands. This is the latest in a series of attempts by the Trump administration and...

Groups send notice of intent to sue over active pollution of Montana ground, surface water from shuttered Troy Mine

Nov 29, 2017

HELENA – Today on behalf of the Montana Environmental Information Center, the Western Environmental Law Center sent a notice of intent to sue Hecla Mining Company over continuing water pollution from the Troy Mine in northwestern Montana. The copper and silver mine,...

Groups appeal district court’s dismissal of case on Four Corners Power Plant and Navajo Mine

Nov 9, 2017

PHOENIX – Navajo, regional and national conservation groups today filed with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to continue their challenge of a 25-year extension of coal operations at Four Corners Power Plant and Navajo Mine. They appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court...

Feds Stop Using Cruel Tools to Kill Colorado Wildlife

Nov 6, 2017

Denver, CO— Today, in response to a lawsuit challenging its activities in Colorado, Wildlife Services, the federal wildlife killing program, agreed to complete a new environmental analysis and end the use of many of its most controversial killing tools in the interim....

Lawsuit aims to protect salmon harmed by Wildlife Services killing beavers in Oregon

Nov 2, 2017

Two environmental organizations today filed a formal notice of intent to sue Wildlife Services, a federal extermination program, over its killing of hundreds of beavers annually in Oregon. The lawsuit aims to hold Wildlife Services accountable for harming threatened...

Citizen and conservation groups challenge drilling near Paonia

Oct 25, 2017

PAONIA, CO — On Friday, Oct. 20, a broad coalition of groups filed a complaint challenging a 146-well Bureau of Land Management (BLM) master development plan (MDP) 30 miles northeast of Paonia in Colorado's Bull Mountain Unit. The coalition includes four citizen and...

WELC now accepting applications for summer 2018 legal interns

Oct 10, 2017

The Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) is accepting applications from law students currently in their second or third year of law school (2L or 3L) for summer 2018 legal internship positions to work with our attorneys in these locations: Helena, Montana; and...

Court orders Zinke, Interior to immediately reinstate BLM methane waste rule

Oct 5, 2017

Late yesterday, a U.S. District Court judge ruled the Trump administration's indefinite suspension of key aspects of President Obama's BLM methane waste rule this summer was "arbitrary and capricious." The court ordered the Department of Interior to "immediately...

Rulemaking sets stage for Trump and Zinke to eliminate or gut BLM methane rule

Oct 4, 2017

Tomorrow, the Trump administration is expected to propose a new rule to delay implementation of the BLM methane rule that curbs waste and pollution from the oil and gas industry on public lands. The proposal would delay for a full year controls on venting, flaring,...