
News Releases
CAREER OPPORTUNITY: Climate & Energy Program Attorney
Job Opening Announcement: Climate & Energy Program Attorney Reports to: Climate & Energy Program Director Location: Santa Fe or Taos, NM. Other WELC office locations, including remote, may be considered for the right candidate in the right situation. Timeline:...
Legal intervention defends northern spotted owl habitat
Conservation groups intervened today in a lawsuit brought by the timber industry and counties seeking to strip northern spotted owls of protections for their critical habitat across millions of acres of forests in California, Oregon and Washington. The industry...
Cowlitz Indian Tribe, salmon conservation group put Tacoma Power on notice over failure to protect threatened salmon, steelhead
Today, the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and The Conservation Angler, represented by attorneys at the Western Environmental Law Center, notified Tacoma Power the groups intend to challenge in court the utility’s failure to provide safe and effective downstream passage past...
Water Quality Control Commission adopts rule banning discharge of oil, gas wastewater to ground, surface waters
The New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission (WQCC) today adopted a rule that prohibits the discharge of “produced water” to New Mexico’s ground and surface waters. Produced water is a waste byproduct of oil and gas operations and contains hundreds of known and...
OR, WA wolf counts illustrate the impact of human-caused mortality on PNW wolves
Oregon and Washington released the results of state wolf surveys for 2024 this week, presenting a contrast in how the species is recovering in the Pacific Northwest. In Oregon, wolf population increased 14% in 2024 over 2023 levels while in Washington, wolf population...
NM community groups strongly support bill to codify 10-mile mineral withdrawal surrounding Chaco
New Mexico community groups today express their strong support for the revival of a 2023 bill backed by the state’s entire Congressional delegation to codify into law a 10-mile buffer zone restricting new oil and gas extraction around Chaco Culture National Historical...
Water Quality Control Commission poised to adopt rule prohibiting discharge of oil, gas wastewater to ground, surface waters
Rule would allow dangerous exception for “pilot projects” to discharge 84,000 gallons per day of treated fossil fuel waste to groundwater, risking public health Following a day and a half of deliberations, the Water Quality Control Commission is poised to adopt...
Gov. completes strong NM response to SCOTUS gutting Clean Water Act by signing SB 21
Today, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed SB 21, now a law to provide critical protections for New Mexico waters. Following rollbacks to federal clean water protections in recent years, up to 95% of New Mexico’s streams and up to 88% of New Mexico’s wetlands have lost...
Court: N126, one of the largest Oregon logging projects in decades, needs more detailed study to safeguard environment, imperiled species
In response to a challenge brought by Cascadia Wildlands and the Western Environmental Law Center, an Oregon federal district court on Monday held that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) violated the law in authorizing the N126 Late Successional Reserve Landscape...
Bill to restore clean water protections passes House, heads to governor for signature
Today, the House voted 43-25 to pass SB 21, a bill to provide critical protections for New Mexico waters. It will next go to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to be signed into law. Following rollbacks to federal clean water protections in recent years, up to 95% of New...
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