Signs put up as part of a protest against the Mountain Valley Pipeline near Bent Mountain, Virginia. Michael S. Williamson / The Washington Post / Getty Images
On Friday, the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) ordered work stopped on the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline that would carry fracked natural gas along a 303-mile route from West Virginia to Virginia, Reuters reported.
<p>The order is the consequence of a legal victory for pipeline opponents July 27, in which three federal appeals judges revoked two permits for the pipeline to cross the Jefferson National Forest, ruling that the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management had not properly reviewed the project before issuing the permits, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/federal-judges-revoke-permit-for-pipeline-saying-impact-on-national-forest-in-va-not-fully-reviewed/2018/07/27/9cbb3904-91d0-11e8-b769-e3fff17f0689_story.html?utm_term=.6cb1b366ff5c" target="_blank">The Washington Post reported</a>. The judges ordered the agencies to redo the permits.</p><p>"Should the agencies authorize alternative routes, (Mountain Valley) may need to revise substantial portions of the project route across non-federal lands, possibly requiring further authorizations and environmental review," FERC said in explaining its decision to halt construction, Reuters reported.</p><p>The<a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/" target="_blank"> Sierra Club</a>, one of the environmental groups that brought the suit against the pipeline, applauded the FERC's decision. </p><p>"We have said all along that we can't trust polluting corporations to protect our water and we're relieved to see construction temporarily halted along the entire route of the MVP," Sierra Club senior attorney Nathan Matthews said in a <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2018/08/ferc-orders-stop-all-construction-fracked-gas-mountain-valley-pipeline" target="_blank">statement</a>. "This order is a victory for everyone who values clean water and a wake-up call for those who think they can put profits over people. There is no right way to build these dirty, dangerous fracked gas pipelines and we will continue to fight them until construction is stopped permanently."</p><p>Natalie Cox, spokesperson for EQT Corp., the company leading construction on the pipeline, told Reuters in an email that the company "respectfully disagrees with the breadth of the August 3 stop work order."</p><p>"We will continue to work closely with all agencies to resolve these issues and look forward to continuing the safe construction of this important infrastructure project," Cox said.</p><p>Opponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline have been fighting it with a combination of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/mountain-valley-pipeline-protesters-2571084795.html" target="_self">tree sits</a> and lawsuits. </p><p>In June, the FERC announced that the pipeline <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/mountain-valley-pipeline-to-halt-construction-2581450004.html" target="_self">had to stop construction</a> more than 591 streams and wetlands in West Virginia following another appeals court decision in favor of environmental groups. </p><p>Opponents hope a mass of legal victories can stop the project all together, and shine a light on an FERC approval process that goes too easy on developers. </p><p>"We hoped this case will put a brake on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission which is running roughshod over the environmental planning process," <a href="https://wilderness.org/" target="_blank">Wilderness Society</a> conservationist Hugh Irwin told The Washington Post of the lawsuit that led to the current stoppage, to which his organization was a party. "Significant environmental concerns were brushed aside and inadequately analyzed," he said.</p><p>The Mountain Valley Pipeline is seen by opponents as a particularly egregious example of a project that ignored environmental and community concerns. </p>"Quite frankly, Mountain Valley Pipeline has become a good example of bad energy development," <a href="https://appalachiantrail.org/" target="_blank">The Appalachian Trail Conservancy</a> said in a <a href="http://appalachiantrail.org/home/conservation/advocacy/mountain-valley-pipeline" target="_blank">statement</a>. "Currently the steep mountainsides near Roanoke are being carved, gashed and ripped up. Unusually heavy rainfall this year has, from when the earthmovers first fired up, exposed the recklessness of this pipeline developer," they wrote.
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Drill pad in Gunnison National Forest, Colorado. Mason Cummings / The Wilderness Society
By Katherine Arcement
Congress wants us to drill our lands and waters … or else!
Some members of Congress are trying to rig the system to use public lands primarily for oil and gas drilling, and they are threatening to silence and punish anyone who objects.
<p>Under the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">Trump</a> administration, public lands are being offered up for drilling at higher rates than ever before. Last year the U.S. government offered up 11.8 million acres for lease, or equivalent to Vermont and New Hampshire together. Vital protections for our air, land and water <a href="https://wilderness.org/interactive-tracking-trumps-anti-public-lands-crusade" target="_blank">have been eliminated</a> and public input has been minimized.</p><p>New legislation is being considered by the House Natural Resources Committee that would hurry the selling of public lands by punishing states and citizens opposed to drilling. It would also relax safety requirements.</p><p>These are five of the worst ideas under consideration:</p><p><strong>1. Making citizens pay to protest drilling</strong></p><p>Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) introduced HR 6087, a bill that would require citizens and groups like <a href="https://wilderness.org/" target="_blank">The Wilderness Society</a> to pay a fee to file comments opposing reckless oil and gas leasing. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels">Oil and gas</a> companies, however, would not have to pay a fee for expressing interest in these parcels.</p><p>Protesting is an important way for citizens to weigh in on projects that could jeopardize <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species">endangered species</a>, water and air quality, or present other threats to the public's wellbeing. Under Cheney's bill, protesters would pay per page filed with the government. Given the technical nature of a written protest, it could cost thousands of dollars to submit a protest. Under this bill, last year The Wilderness Society would have spent $15,000 in filings.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODE0MzIxNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMTc3OTA2M30.gSNb8mzk9yrPj_hbBZX-I1QelNxNfcnggWQVK89mTuE/img.jpg?width=980" id="70386" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="86fd5dec36e1dbb98d803d12a3d1c71b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Oil and gas operations on public lands in New Mexico</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Mason Cummings / TWS</small></p><p><strong>2. Rigging the system to benefit polluters</strong></p><p>Rep. Steve Pearce from New Mexico introduced HR 6106 and HR 6107, bills that would limit the ability of federal regulators to review environmental, safety or public health impacts of projects. HR 6106 would stop Bureau of Land Management employees from taking a closer look at several types of oil and gas projects—including roads and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pipelines">pipelines</a>—regardless of the impact they may have.</p><p>HR 6107 would similarly bar federal regulators from reviewing certain oil and gas projects regardless of impact. The bill proposes to exempt any project that taps less than 50 percent of the federal mineral resources available, so long as the land surface is owned by another party.</p><p><strong>3. Handing out drilling permits as fast as possible</strong></p><p>Rep. John Curtis (R-UT) proposed HR 6088, a bill creating a new program for drilling permits on many public lands. It would make it so that after a permit has been filed, a company does not need a site inspection or environmental review to drill. All they have to do is wait 45 days. The only exception is if the Secretary of the Interior personally objects. This idea to rubber-stamp drilling permits would eliminate nearly all scrutiny of public health, safety or environmental impacts of a drill site.</p><p><strong>4. Tying our children's education funding to oil drilling</strong></p><p>Rep. Scott Tipton's (R-CO) HR 5859 bill would require that we expand onshore energy production to provide funds for education. It would do so by encouraging expansion of drilling on our public lands and incentivizing drilling. The bill would also potentially ignore dangerous consequences on public health, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife">wildlife</a> habitat, and air and water quality. It creates a false choice between selling out children's wellbeing and funding their education.</p><p><strong>5. Handing drilling on public lands over to the states and penalizing states that oppose drilling</strong></p><p>Possibly the worst idea yet is the "Enhancing State Management of Federal Lands and Waters" bill. This proposal would allow states to apply to manage an unlimited number of acres of federal lands that were within their borders. It would also exempt oil and gas projects from federal environmental laws and put states in charge of all permitting and project regulation. States would then be forced to continue to drill these lands at increasing intervals, as they would be rewarded for drilling more and penalized or have management stripped from them for drilling less. The state of Utah could push drilling in the 2 million acres of land illegally eliminated from <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bears-ears">Bears Ears</a> and Grand Staircase National Monuments.</p><p>This proposal would also penalize states that oppose <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/offshore-oil-drilling">drilling off their coasts</a>. States that object to too many leases off their coasts could be charged a penalty that could reach billions or even trillions of dollars over the course of ten years. States that go along with the program would be rewarded by larger shares of royalty payments for resources that belong to all of us.</p><p>BILL STATUS:</p><ul class="ee-ul"> <li>The "Enhancing State Management of Federal Lands and Waters" proposal was heard in the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources on June 14, 2018. It currently is a draft and could be introduced as formal legislation.</li><li>HR 5859, 6087, 6088, and 6107 have passed the House Natural Resources Committee and now await a vote in front of the entire House of Representatives.</li><li>HR 6106 passed the House Natural Resources Committee on June 6, 2018. It now awaits a vote in front of the entire House of Representatives.</li></ul><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="75c4f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9EG1HI1576662583"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="983726892703453184" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Conservation Groups: Fracking, Drilling Would Ruin Public Lands Near Colorado's Great Sand Dunes National Park… https://t.co/On2eNv8oCb</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/983726892703453184">1523373742.0</a></blockquote></div>
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Public Lands Under Siege: Trump Administration Moves to Hasten Drilling, Weaken Public Input
02 February 2018
Popular
Oil pumps just outside Canyonlands National Park, Utah. Mason Cummings / Wilderness Society
The Interior Department is moving to expedite the leasing process for allowing oil and gas drilling on public land, according to an agency memo made public Thursday.
The memo released by the Bureau of Land Management states that it seeks to "simplify and streamline the leasing process to alleviate unnecessary impediments and burdens ... to ensure quarterly oil and gas lease sales are consistently held."
<p>The directive issues several new guidelines to shorten the timeline for drilling, including requiring all lease sales to be processed within a 60-day period, allowing formerly mandatory public participation in lease reviews to be left to the discretion of lower-level field officials, and shortening the public protest period on lease sales to 10 days. The memo was issued one day before the Interior Department opened leasing and mining on the recently-reduced Grand Staircase-Escalante and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bears-ears">Bears Ears</a> monuments in Utah.</p><p>As reported by the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/02/01/trump-administration-tears-down-regulations-to-speed-drilling-on-public-land/?utm_term=.cc8f8bbff1ae" target="_blank">Washington Post</a>:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"The <a href="https://wilderness.org" target="_blank">Wilderness Society</a> pointed out that oil and gas companies owned leases on 15 million acres before 2017, with thousands of drilling permits they haven't used.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">'Today's announced sweeping change to BLM's oil and gas leasing program threatens irreplaceable federal public lands and resources in Utah and across the West,' said Stephen Bloch, legal director for the <a href="https://suwa.org" target="_blank">Southern Wilderness Alliance</a>. He called it a 'lease first, think later' policy that is 'fundamentally inconsistent with federal laws that demand agencies think before they act and consider the full range of impacts from selling oil and gas leases.'</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">Michael Saul, a senior attorney at the <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org" target="_blank">Center for Biological Diversity</a>, said that it is 'deeply disturbing that the Trump administration wants to give <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels">fossil fuel</a> companies free rein over our public lands, without community input or disclosing environmental harms.' The changes announced won't speed up oil and gas leasing, Saul predicted. 'They'll result in rushed, ill-considered, illegal decisions that will be overturned in court.'"</p>
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</p><div id="b7e0d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2VSSXN1576662585"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="959187134652600320" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">'Outrageous' Gold Rush-Style Grab of Public Lands to Begin Friday https://t.co/tH0UHfq1c3 @greenpeaceusa @Sierra_Magazine @foe_us</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/959187134652600320">1517523008.0</a></blockquote></div>
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<p><strong><span></span>For a deeper dive:</strong></p><p>Memo: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/02/01/trump-administration-tears-down-regulations-to-speed-drilling-on-public-land/?utm_term=.cc8f8bbff1ae" target="_blank">Washington Post</a>, <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/371912-interior-roll-backs-oil-drilling-policies-for-federal-land" target="_blank">The Hill</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-guts-obama-policy-to-open-up-drilling-on-public-lands/article/2647881" target="_blank">Washington Examiner</a>. Monuments: <a href="https://earther.com/claim-your-gold-and-uranium-at-bears-ears-starting-frid-1822640266" target="_blank">Earther</a></p><p> <em>For more </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" target="_blank"><em>climate change</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/business/renewables/" target="_blank"><em>clean energy</em></a><em> news, you can follow Climate Nexus on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateNexus" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ClimateNexus/" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a><em>, and sign up for daily </em><a href="http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=7c84c08aaa" target="_blank"><em>Hot News</em></a><em>.</em></p>
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Monroe Journal / iStock
By Sam Schipani
While the world was distracted by the government shutdown last Monday, Jan. 22, Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke signed a land-swap agreement with the King Cove Native Corporation to trade 500 acres of federal land in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, on the southern tip of the Alaska Peninsula, for tribal land of equal value. The land will be used to build a 20-mile gravel road connecting King Cove to the nearby city of Cold Bay for medical evacuations in poor weather, 11 miles of which will pass through the wildlife refuge.
<p style="">Although many Alaskan legislators and King Cove residents celebrated the agreement, the land swap has faced opposition from environmental groups, subsistence communities and sportsmen. Izembek National Wildlife Refuge was the first area in the U.S. to be named a Wetland of International Importance at the <a href="https://www.ramsar.org/" target="_blank">Ramsar Convention</a> in 1986. Even though it is the smallest of the 16 national wildlife refuges located in Alaska, Izembek contains more than 200 wildlife species, including brown bears and caribou. Millions of migratory birds, including <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060070369" target="_blank">98 percent of the world's Pacific black brants and the entire global population of emperor geese</a>, rely on the vast stores of eel grass in the lagoons to feed during their journey along the Pacific Flyway.</p><p style="">"It is a very unique and extremely important ecosystem," said Nicole Wittington-Evans, Alaska regional director of the Wilderness Society. The road "would really change the entire feel and wilderness character of this area."</p><p style="">Subsistence communities in western Alaska, who have been involved in the area's conservation efforts since the early 1980s, have also spoken out against the project. In an April 2017 statement against the road project to House Committee on Natural Resources, Myron P. Naneng, chair of the Sea Lion Village Corporation Board, cited impacts to subsistence resources like waterfowl and fish, increased ATV use, and the federal government's legal obligation to subsistence communities under the <a href="https://www.doi.gov/subsistence" target="_blank">Federal Subsistence Management Program</a> as reasons the road project should not be built.</p><p>"Virtually the entire populations of Brant and Emperor geese depend on the Izembek refuge for feeding and staging, and because there are other effective transportation alternatives for King Cove, we cannot support this land exchange and road," Naneng said.</p><p>Wilderness advocates worry that, in addition to the localized impacts, a road through the Izembek refuge could open a precedent for other infrastructure projects in federally designated wilderness areas.</p><p style="">"When you build a road, invariably, in spite of all the promises and safeguards that are made, ultimately it becomes a public road," said Francis Mauer, retired wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Alaska chapter representative from Wilderness Watch. There is a historical precedent for this in Alaska. During the development of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, Dalton Highway (originally called the Haul Road) was only intended to be used to support pipeline construction and to access the northern oil fields. Despite those promises, the road was <a href="http://dnr.alaska.gov/Assets/uploads/DNRPublic/parks/interp/pdf/daltonhwyscenisbywaycorridor.pdf" target="_blank">fully opened to the public in 1994</a>. Although the road through Izembek would be built under the auspice of providing access to medical services, it could also be used to connect the King Cove cannery operations to the Cold Bay Airport, as originally proposed in the city's 1994 resolution.</p><p>Sportsmen are also concerned about the road. Barry Whitehall, a board member for the Alaska chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, wrote in <a href="http://www.hcn.org/articles/opinion-a-backdoor-land-swap-to-build-in-alaskan-wilderness" target="_blank">High Country News</a> in October 2017 that "any hunter who has experienced the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge ... will never forget it." He continued, "Construction of a road through the heart of Izembek's wilderness lands would set a precedent endangering refuges and wilderness areas everywhere."</p><p>Under the <a href="https://wilderness.nps.gov/faqnew.cfm" target="_blank">1964 Wilderness Act</a>, new roads and motorized vehicle use are banned in wilderness areas, save for rare instances of providing access to mining claims. All but 15,000 of the 315,000-acre Izembek National Wildlife Refuge has been inaccessible to motorized traffic since Congress designated it wilderness in 1980 under the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/96th-congress/house-bill/39" target="_blank">Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act</a>—the same law that designated wilderness in the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/arctic-refuge-drilling-2517635533.html">Arctic National Wildlife Refuge</a>, in which Congress lifted a decades-old ban on oil and gas drilling in December.</p><p style="">The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has <a href="https://www.fws.gov/uploadedFiles/Region_7/NWRS/Zone_1/Izembek/PDF/03%20Chapter%201%20Purpose%20and%20Need.pdf" target="_blank">reviewed and rejected the road project multiple times</a> due to the irreparable damage it would cause to the ecosystems in the refuge. After Congress authorized a similar land exchange in 2009, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducted a four-year environmental impact assessment and rejected the project in 2013 due to the predicted adverse effects on habitats and wildlife.</p><p style="">"Simply exchanging lands will not compensate for myriad ripple effects on habitat and wildlife due to uses on and beyond the road, nor would new lands provide habitat for all the same species," the <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2013/02/06/2013-02618/final-environmental-impact-statement-izembek-national-wildlife-refuge-proposed-land-exchangeroad" target="_blank">report</a> says.</p><p>King Cove, population 938, according to the 2010 census, is largely occupied by the Agdaagux tribe and fisherpeople. Its economy depends on the year-round commercial fishing and seafood-processing industries, particularly the <a href="http://www.ppsf.com/" target="_blank">Peter Pan Seafoods</a> facility that employs at least 500 townspeople and boasts to be one of the largest cannery operations in Alaska.</p><p>The area is also known for its storms—King Cove sits in a constricted mountain valley nestled between two volcanic peaks. Gale-force winds are common, making air transportation in and out of town difficult. The city reported 18 deaths in the past 30 years attributed to plane crashes or lack of access to medical treatment. The proposed road would connect the town to the all-weather Cold Bay Airport, where King Cove residents can fly 600 miles to Anchorage for medical care.</p><p>"We have spent decades fighting for this road for one reason—it is critical for our survival," said Della Trumble, spokeswoman for the King Cove Native Corporation and a member of the local Agdaagux tribe, in the King Cove press release on the topic. "We have already lost too many friends and loved ones for there to be any legitimate reason to oppose this agreement. A small road connecting two remote communities may not seem like an important issue to many people, but to us, it is a lifeline to the outside world."</p><p style="">The gravel road, however, may not be the best solution for the community's medical needs. Dr. Peter Mjos, former medical director for the Eastern Aleutian Tribes, described the road as a "calamity-in-waiting" in a 2013 letter to then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. "Any vehicle or ambulance attempting transit or rescue in such conditions could be suicidal, rescue impossible, rescuers gravely imperiled," Mjos detailed.</p><p style="">The federal government has proposed numerous alternatives to the road. Congress funded a hovercraft for the community in 1998, but the Aleutians East Borough discontinued its use in 2011, claiming it could no longer afford the $1 million in annual operating costs. A <a href="https://www.energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=D8EA08E9-75F1-4D79-A833-87EE91616819" target="_blank">2015 assessment by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers</a> proposed a ferry capable of carrying passengers to Cold Bay year-round with 99 percent dependability based on historic wind data along the projected route. Mjos also described the ferry as "the safest, most reliable, most viable, and most cost-effective medical evacuation solution for the residents of King Cove."</p><p style="">There may be more than just medicine motivating the road's construction. The city of King Cove passed a <a href="https://www.eenews.net/assets/2014/03/24/document_gw_05.pdf" target="_blank">resolution</a> in 1994 stating that the road would link the salmon cannery in King Cove with Cold Bay Airport with no mention of the health and safety concerns. Alaskan politicians throughout the years have cited the commercial benefits of the King Cove road as the raison d'être for its construction—only recently has the issue of access to health care come into play.</p><p style="">Certain Alaskan legislators have long been invested in the King Cove road project. Following the agreement's signing, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the Alaskan Republican, convened Zinke, King Cove residents, Gov. Bill Walker, Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young for a news conference to celebrate the achievement. The <a href="https://wilderness.org/sites/default/files/Timeline%20-%20History%20of%20the%20Proposed%20Road%20Through%20Izembek%20National%20Wildlife%20Refuge.pdf" target="_blank">Murkowski family has advocated for legislative action to make the King Cove road</a> a reality for two decades. The current senator's father, Sen. Frank Murkowski, first introduced the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/105th-congress/senate-bill/1092" target="_blank">King Cove Health and Safety Act</a>, which would have allowed construction of the road, in 1997. Then-president Bill Clinton threatened to veto the bill, but it ultimately died in the House. In 2007, Sen. Murkowski reignited the debate with a <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/110th-congress/senate-bill/1680" target="_blank">proposed bill for a land exchange</a>, and has been working toward bringing the road to fruition ever since.</p><p>Murkowski is one of the leading Senate voices on rolling back protections for federal land. She has consistently advocated for increasing oil and gas production in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and spearheaded a <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/3203?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22sa+838%22%5D%7D" target="_blank">2016 bill</a> to favor oil and gas development and prevent conservation designations on federal lands in Alaska. Now, she has support from the top.</p><p style="">The King Cove road project "is [the Trump administration] taking its chance, like it's done on a host of other conservation issues," said Dan Ritzman, Alaska program director at the Sierra Club. "This administration, which is willing to do and try anything, gave Senator Murkowski this window to move on this action."</p><p>The King Cove road project has received a surprising amount of attention from the White House. The Washington Post first reported on the inner workings for the deal, which was described by Interior officials as an internal "<a href="http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/national/interior-officials-describe-izembek-land-exchange-as-push-from-zinkes-office/2584/" target="_blank">push</a>" from Zinke, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interior-looks-at-behind-the-scenes-land-swap-to-allow-road-through-wilderness-refuge/2017/10/15/c6458380-aeb7-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html?utm_term=.1f189e8cfa8d" target="_blank">in October</a>. According to <a href="http://media10.washingtonpost.com/generic/media/document_cloud/document/pdf/izdoclink7.pdf" target="_blank">emails</a> obtained by the Defenders of Wildlife in a series of Freedom of Information Act requests, Interior officials made a concerted effort to conceal the plan in fear of how the public would respond. But President Trump reportedly took personal interest in the issue after The Washington Post's story was published. He reportedly sent a <a href="https://twitter.com/eilperin/status/955491469527339008" target="_blank">copy of the paper to Murkowski with the message</a>, "Lisa, we will get it done."</p><p><em><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/zinke-moves-build-road-through-alaskan-wilderness-area" target="_blank">SIERRA Magazine</a>.</em></em></p>
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New Report: Taxpayers Deserve Climate Impact Information for Fossil Fuel Development on Public Lands
25 January 2018
Energy
Grand Teton National Park. David Kingham / Flickr
A new report released Thursday by The Wilderness Society provides an in-depth look at the significant lifecycle emissions resulting from the development of fossil fuels on U.S. public lands, and the need for the federal government to account for and make available such data to the American public.
"The U.S. federal government is one of the largest energy asset managers in the world, and yet they are actively keeping their shareholders—American taxpayers—in the dark when it comes to energy development and its associated climate-related risks on our public lands," said Chase Huntley, energy and climate program director at The Wilderness Society.
<p>According to the report, greenhouse gas emissions associated with oil, gas and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal">coal</a> developed on public lands is equivalent to one-fifth or more of total U.S. emissions; meaning if U.S. public lands were a country, it would rank fifth in the world in total emissions behind China, India, the U.S. and Russia. </p><p>Limited data on federal fossil fuel resources and production is publicly available, and <a href="https://wilderness.org/press-release/us-withdrawal-resource-transparency-initiative-%E2%80%9Cdisregards-public%E2%80%99s-right-know%E2%80%9D-says-tws" target="_blank">recent behavior</a> from the new administration suggests even less will be released. Meanwhile, land management agencies have been directed to ignore <a href="https://www.blm.gov/policy/im-2018-002" target="_blank">commonsense guidance for estimating carbon emissions</a> and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-executive-order-promoting-energy-independence-economic-growth/" target="_blank">climate impacts</a> for energy leases. Moreover, there is currently no systematic effort to track nor disclose the carbon consequences of energy leasing on public lands.</p><p>"Hiding data on emissions and production from the American people prohibits them from meaningfully engaging in land management decision processes," Huntley said. "Just as shareholders have the right to key information regarding financial risks to their portfolios, American taxpayers deserve adequate information on how their energy assets are being managed."</p><p>Along with the report, The Wilderness Society has utilized the limited data available to create the Federal Lands Emissions Accountability Tool (FLEAT).</p><p>The new tool, now available on The Wilderness Society <a href="https://wilderness.org/dontbeinthedark" target="_blank">website</a>, provides the best available estimate for greenhouse gas emissions from energy production on U.S. public lands, allowing the user to explore the data by location and different fuel types.</p>
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</p><div id="42df4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="EK62OJ1576663481"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="939248046147325953" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">While America Focuses on Tax Bill, Congress Quietly Tries to Open #Arctic Refuge to Oil Drilling… https://t.co/AMprPfBsH7</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/939248046147325953">1512769159.0</a></blockquote></div>
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MUST-SEE VIDEO: 5 Threats Today to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante After Trump's Decision
14 December 2017
Popular
While we fight to defeat President Trump's attacks on Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, these are some of the real, on-the-ground threats we must keep at bay.
Following the lead of Native American tribes, The Wilderness Society and other groups have filed lawsuits against President Trump for violating the Antiquities Act when he essentially eliminated Bears Ears and greatly reduced Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
<p style="">An intense and <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/12/4/16733798/utah-national-monument-trump-bears-ears-staircase-escalante" target="_blank">precedent-setting</a> legal battle is ahead, and it could drag on for a while. With the support of our members and other <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-lands">public lands</a>-loving Americans, we expect to win. </p><p style="">But while we battle it out in court, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante will be opened to the scourges of development and visitor misbehavior, among other things. Moving beyond the rhetoric and political gestures, here are a few of the actual, on-the-ground threats to these public lands, beginning with the most imminent.</p><p style=""><strong>1. More roads and reckless motorized use </strong></p><p>The land cut out of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments will remain public, but it will not enjoy as high a level of protection as before Trump's decision. One of the most immediate concerns in these areas is re-opened roads and reckless all-terrain vehicle (ATV) use. Motorized vehicles will now be allowed on <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/what-happens-now-that-trump-has-said-hell-scale-back-bears-ears-and-grand-staircase-escalante" target="_blank">any road that existed prior to the establishment</a> of the monuments. </p><p style="">That may end up being <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2017/11/20/what-does-kane-county-want-in-a-redrawn-grand-straircase-escalante-monument/" target="_blank">hundreds of roads</a>, thanks to an oft-exploited <a href="http://www.hcn.org/issues/49.14/latest-utah-road-claims-on-public-lands" target="_blank">law passed in 1866</a>. Utah county governments have used the statute to claim that derelict or disused old settler trails count as current roads. This has included more than <a href="https://suwa.org/issues/phantom-roads-r-s-2477/" target="_blank">1,400 miles of routes claimed within Bears Ears</a> and 2,000 miles of routes within Grand Staircase-Escalante. So we could see huge swaths of wildlands suddenly overrun by vehicles now that the monument boundaries have been drastically contracted, isolating the still-protected sites as small, disconnected islands amid oceans of disruptive traffic.</p><p style=""><strong>2. Increased destructive "treatments" that tear up the land </strong></p><p style="">The Trump administration's new declarations specify they "may allow for active, science-based vegetation treatment" in both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. This will likely lead to a range of destructive activities meant to replace native plants with perennial grass cover. One of the most viscerally upsetting is so-called "chaining," in which bulldozers drag enormous chains across the desert to uproot trees.</p><p style="">Research suggests this practice—which is likely to be among the first undertaken in the newly un-protected landscape—can <a href="http://www.greatoldbroads.org/wp-content/uploads/formidable/44/Redmond-et-al.-2013-Effects-of-chaining-in-GSENM-less-pinyon.pdf" target="_blank">suppress tree growth in the area</a> for decades after the fact, especially impacting the piñon pine. <a href="http://www.greatoldbroads.org/wp-content/uploads/formidable/44/Redmond-et-al.-2013-Effects-of-chaining-in-GSENM-less-pinyon.pdf" target="_blank">Chaining also reduces biocrust</a>, a thin layer of organisms on the soil surface that help maintain the desert ecosystem, and leads to <a href="http://www.greatoldbroads.org/wp-content/uploads/formidable/44/Redmond-et-al.-2013-Effects-of-chaining-in-GSENM-less-pinyon.pdf" target="_blank">increased wind and water erosion</a>. </p><p style=""><strong>3. Damage to Native American cultural sites </strong></p><p style="">With Trump's decision, priceless archaeological and cultural sites in <a href="http://wilderness.org/blog/looters-vandals-threaten-some-americas-great-archaeological-sites-bears-ears" target="_blank">Bears Ears will be vulnerable to looting and vandalism</a>, as they were for years prior to monument designation. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/08/climate/bears-ears-monument-trump.html" target="_blank">Rock art, cliff dwellings and other cultural sites now fall</a> outside the monument boundaries, meaning less oversight for a piece of public land already extremely short on staff. A similar situation faces Grand Staircase-Escalante.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjg5NjM2NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNDk5MDc2N30.g_ew5LPX4UDHjWj9nMy6QLdqyO-6yMjQW4_4sNBOV70/img.jpg?width=980" id="28911" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="eb272a57ded6757986dbf47624fa63d7" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Bob Wick (BLM) / Flickr</small></p><p style="">The proclamation for Bears Ears also called for changes in the commission overseeing the monument that <a href="https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900005561/tribes-monument-co-management-proposal-is-slap-in-the-face.html" target="_blank">tribes say excludes key voices while elevating those hand-picked by anti-public lands interests</a>. An attorney with the Native American Rights Fund characterizes a bill that more or less codifies Trump's decision as an attempt "to dilute and silence the tribal voice." It is unclear what exactly this will mean for the monument, but it's safe to say it won't involve more buffers and protection for critical tribal sites.<br></p><p style=""><strong>4. Fossils exposed to vandalism (and important research halted)</strong></p><p style="">There are estimated to be more than 3,000 "scientifically important" fossil sites in the full Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and Trump's cuts would <a href="http://vertpaleo.org/Society-News/SVP-Paleo-News/Society-News,-Press-Releases/Grand-Staircase-Escalante-and-Bears-Ears-National.aspx" target="_blank">leave out more than 400 of them</a>, including many potential <a href="https://medium.com/westwise/meet-the-dinosaurs-of-grand-staircase-escalante-a-national-monument-president-trump-is-threatening-852822ac8ae6" target="_blank">dinosaur</a> finds and a large section of <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=51948" target="_blank">Triassic petrified forest mentioned in President Bill Clinton's original proclamation</a> establishing the monument. Bears Ears has not been studied as extensively by paleontologists, but is considered ripe with potential; Trump's virtual elimination of that monument will strip protected status from a <a href="http://vertpaleo.org/Society-News/SVP-Paleo-News/Society-News,-Press-Releases/Grand-Staircase-Escalante-and-Bears-Ears-National.aspx" target="_blank">major Triassic bone bed, among other sites</a>. </p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjg5NjQwMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxODM3MTI4Mn0.5H0-pSUw6qMV0BooUYJoIhEzzk3bnD_IUmZL1s-w3is/img.jpg?width=980" id="3a368" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d9adc7fa633c376b61069c25bd1f5851" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">A dinosaur skeleton unearthed at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, now exhibited at the Natural History Museum of Utah.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Charles (Chuck) Peterson / Flickr</small></p><p style="">This is why, in addition to Native American groups and The Wilderness Society, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology is among those groups suing Trump over his monument cuts. Paleontologists worry that with former monument-protected land <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/qa-why-fossil-scientists-are-suing-trump-over-monuments-downsizing" target="_blank">reverting to a less protective level of "multiple use"</a> management, <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2017/12/10/scientists-decry-trumps-move-to-strip-fossil-treasures-from-utahs-grand-staircase-monument/" target="_blank">mining and other activities will come to take precedence</a> over fossils. In the meantime, fossils will be exposed to vandalism, which is <a href="http://wilderness.org/blog/dinosaur-national-monument-vandalized-public-lands-still-risk" target="_blank">already a huge problem at some national monuments</a> and would be even more so for tracts of land that lack that level of staff and resources.<br></p><p>Cuts will also <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pol-trump-national-monuments-20171026-htmlstory.html" target="_blank">interfere with research</a> and perhaps even halt some projects entirely (a great deal of funding that led to major fossil finds in Grand Staircase-Escalante <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/qa-why-fossil-scientists-are-suing-trump-over-monuments-downsizing" target="_blank">came through the monument</a>, including the resources to airlift a rare, <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2017/10/15/nearly-complete-tyrannosaur-fossil-airlifted-from-utahs-grand-staircase/#gallery-carousel-8175144" target="_blank">nearly complete tyrannosaur skeleton</a> out of a now de-designated monument area earlier this year). </p><p style=""><strong>5. Uranium and coal mining in formerly protected lands </strong></p><p style="">As has been extensively reported, Trump's monument attacks are likely motivated by a push to drill and mine in and around Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. In the case of Bears Ears, a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/uranium-firm-urged-trump-officials-to-shrink-bears-ears-national-monument/2017/12/08/2eea39b6-dc31-11e7-b1a8-62589434a581_story.html?utm_term=.a7e66f61a35f" target="_blank">uranium company lobbied the Trump administration</a> to exclude potentially ore-rich areas from the new monument boundaries, as becomes glaringly obvious with a glance at the map:</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjg5NjUzMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NDcwNDY0NX0.q8HpvM-5sJgmq5rwxLbw3js65JNgZgwS8Sh7Xjv20gM/img.jpg?width=980" id="949e9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="19b2e8fca00851800ed550a11c6880d1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
</p><p>The price of uranium is currently too low to expedite mining on the land, but that is not a permanent state. Similarly, while the area formerly protected as Bears Ears is not considered a high-potential spot for oil and gas drilling at the moment, that could easily change with <a href="http://www.hcn.org/articles/monuments-what-national-monument-protections-do" target="_blank">market fluctuations and the development of new technologies</a>. </p><p style="">Meanwhile, Trump's contracted borders for Grand Staircase-Escalante carefully tiptoe around <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal">coal</a> deposits (see below), opening the door for coal mining operations on former monument lands. That could mean thousands of acres dug up and stripped, waterways polluted with soil and contaminants and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife">wildlife</a> driven away by dust and noise pollution. </p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjg5NjUzMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwODk1MTk2Mn0.r3vNHvyM9VjrnPbNnucq1nwQixz-b5kE6ywePOmzoWc/img.jpg?width=980" id="50ac9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="92cf1d573364417d099d347b3415f928" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
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While America Focuses on Tax Bill, Congress Quietly Tries to Open Arctic Refuge to Oil Drilling
08 December 2017
Animals
Herd of caribou on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Izuru Toki / Flickr
The U.S. Senate has passed a Republican tax-reform package that contains a provision to authorize oil drilling on the coastal plain of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, placing the biological heart of one of our last pristine, untouched places in severe peril.
"This vote to deface and pollute one of the nation's last pristine and untouched wild landscapes is outrageous," said Jamie Williams, president of The Wilderness Society, in a statement after the Senate passed the tax package. "The Arctic Refuge drilling provision has no legitimate place in a tax bill, and this backdoor political deal now threatens to destroy the crown jewel of our National Wildlife Refuge System."
<p style="">Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, attached her drilling bill to the tax legislation under the budget reconciliation process as a way of getting the unpopular measure passed with a mere 51 votes, with no chance of a filibuster by Democratic senators who want to defend the refuge. The bill now needs to be reconciled with the House version, which does not include an Arctic Refuge drilling provision .</p><p style="">Unless the drilling provision is stripped from the legislation during negotiations with the House, it will be part of the final tax bill that goes to President <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">Trump</a> for his signature, allowing the fragile coastal plain to be auctioned off to the oil industry and undoing nearly 40 years of bipartisan support for protecting the Arctic Refuge.</p><p style="">At 19.3 million acres, the Arctic Refuge is America's largest <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife">wildlife</a> refuge and provides habitat and birthing grounds for native caribou, polar bear and migrating birds from across the globe, and a diverse range of wilderness lands. Its 1.5 million-acre coastal plain—stretching north from the Brooks Range to the Arctic Ocean—provides vital denning habitat for <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species">endangered</a> polar bears and is the calving ground of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, which contains nearly 200,000 animals.</p><p style="">Oil and gas drilling would have devastating impacts on this pristine and fragile ecosystem, caused by the massive infrastructure needed to extract and transport oil. Drilling the Arctic is risky, would fragment vital habitat and chronic spills of oil and other <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/toxics">toxic</a> substances onto the fragile tundra would forever scar this now pristine landscape and disrupt its wildlife. </p><p style="">"This fight is not over," Williams said in his statement after Senate Republicans passed their bill in the middle of the night. "The oil industry and its allies in Congress may think they can sneak this past the American people, but communities across the country are speaking out every day. They are calling on principled leaders in Congress to reject this poison pill and oppose a tax bill that would drill the refuge."</p>
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Zinke Calls for Reducing Two More National Monuments, Exposing Public Lands to Grazing and Logging
06 December 2017
Popular
A view from Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument—Pilot Rock. BLM / Bob Wick / Flickr
By Jason Mark
More than three months after he delivered his national monument recommendations to the White House, Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke on Tuesday finally made public his list of proposed reductions and management changes to 10 monuments. The announcement came one day after President Donald Trump, in the largest rollback of protected areas in U.S. history, signed a pair of proclamations slashing the size of Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument.
Zinke's final report to the president is largely identical to a version of the recommendations that was leaked to the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal in September.
<p style="">In addition to the reductions in the two Utah monuments Trump announced Monday, Zinke is urging unspecified reductions in Nevada's Gold Butte National Monument and Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, which straddles the California-Oregon border. The report also urges the president to consider changing the boundaries of two marine monuments in the Pacific Ocean: Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll.</p><p style="">Conservation groups and some elected officials quickly criticized Zinke's recommendations. "Secretary Zinke falsely claims the Interior Department is listening to the voices of Oregonians when it comes to the agency's damaging, vague recommendation to close off public access to the Cascade-Siskiyou monument," Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and an outspoken proponent of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, said. "This is not what the majority of Oregonians signed up for when they spoke out in favor of expanding protections for this Oregon treasure. These public lands belong to all Oregonians and all Americans, not to corporations or Trump's department heads." </p><p>Environmental organizations, led by several southwestern Native American nations, are already moving to block Trump's national monument reductions, which they say are illegal.</p><p style="">"Yesterday, we saw the largest ever stripping of protections for America's publicly owned lands, with losses at two national monuments in Utah," Jamie Williams, president of the <a href="http://wilderness.org/">Wilderness Society</a>, said Tuesday. "Today, President Trump and Secretary Zinke are doubling down on their illegal and unpopular attack on public lands and waters by proposing to rip away protections from even more of America's favorite places in the Nevada desert and the lush <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/forests">forests</a> of Oregon and Northern California." </p><p>Zinke's report also calls for making changes to the management plans of another half dozen national monuments, including Katahdin Woods and Waters in Maine, Northeast Canyons and Seamounts in the Atlantic Ocean, and New Mexico's Rio Grande del Norte and Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks. In general, the recommended changes call for allowing additional logging, cattle grazing, and/or the use of off-road motorized vehicles.</p><p style="">On a call Tuesday with reporters, Zinke rejected arguments that the monument reductions are in any way motivated by efforts to increase fossil fuel extraction on <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-lands">public lands</a>. "This is not about energy," Zinke told reporters. "There is no oil and gas assets."</p><p style="">Zinke's official report to the president, however, does note that Trump's April 2017 executive order asking for the national monument review explicitly raised the issue of energy assets: "Monument designations that result from a lack of public outreach and proper coordination with state, tribal, and local officials and other relevant stakeholders may also create barriers to achieving energy independence, restrict public access to and use of federal lands, burden state, tribal, and local governments, and otherwise curtail economic growth." The formal review of Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument notes that the area contains "an estimated several billion tons of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal">coal</a>."</p>
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</p><div id="1e690" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="XPTBLQ1576662589"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="915331952206581761" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Zinke’s Monument Review: Another Gift to Oil, Gas, and Coal https://t.co/MosPAvoxju @Sierra_Magazine @greenpeaceusa</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/915331952206581761">1507067118.0</a></blockquote></div>
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<p>During the Tuesday press conference, Zinke also blasted critics who have complained that the monument review process has been one-sided, lacking in transparency, and deaf to public opinion. "I don't yield to public pressure," Zinke said. "Sound public policy is not based on the threats of a lawsuit; it's doing what's right."</p><p style=""><a href="https://medium.com/westwise/america-to-trump-and-zinke-dont-touch-national-monuments-8f4b40c43599" target="_blank">According to an analysis by the Center for Western Priorities</a>, 98 percent of the 650,000 public comments received by the Interior Department during Zinke's review process favored preserving national monuments at their current size.</p><p style=""><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/secretary-zinke-calls-for-reducing-two-more-national-monuments" target="_blank">SIERRA</a> magazine.</em></p>
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'A Terrible Violation of America's Public Lands and Heritage': Lawsuit Targets Trump's Slashing of Protections at Grand Staircase-Escalante
05 December 2017
Popular
Hoodoos at sunrise in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Bob Wick / BLM / Flickr
Hours after President Donald Trump issued a proclamation taking an axe to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah on Monday, conservation organizations filed a lawsuit attacking the order as an abuse of the president's power.
Earthjustice is representing eight organizations in a suit charging that the president violated the 1906 Antiquities Act by stripping monument protections from this national treasure: The Wilderness Society, the Grand Canyon Trust, the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, Center for Biological Diversity, WildEarth Guardians and Western Watersheds Project. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and Natural Resources Defense Council are co-plaintiffs in the lawsuit and represented by in-house counsel.
<p style="">"If the Trump administration thinks Grand Staircase-Escalante can be sold out without a fight, they're in for a huge surprise," said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife.</p><p style="">The Grand Staircase-Escalante contains dinosaur fossils found nowhere else in the world. Since its designation, 21 new dinosaur species have been unearthed by scientists in the monument, leading some to call these lands a "Dinosaur Shangri-la," and a "geologic wonderland." Grand Staircase holds one of the richest collections of fossils from the Late Cretaceous Period, which gives scientists and the public alike an unparalleled window into the dinosaurs that lived in these lands 10 million years ago. In mid-October, scientists <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2017/10/15/nearly-complete-tyrannosaur-fossil-airlifted-from-utahs-grand-staircase/" target="_blank">airlifted</a> one of the most complete tyrannosaur skeletons ever found out of Grand Staircase. These fossils are largely found in the Kaiparowits Plateau, where the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal">coal</a> industry has long <a href="http://files.geology.utah.gov/online/c/c-93/gsekcoal.htm" target="_blank">coveted access</a> for coal mining that would wreak havoc on this dinosaur treasure trove that belongs to the American people.</p><p style="">"President Trump has perpetrated a terrible violation of America's public lands and heritage by going after this dinosaur treasure trove," said Heidi McIntosh, managing attorney in Earthjustice's Rocky Mountains office. "While past presidents have used the Antiquities Act to protect unique lands and cultural sites in America, Trump is instead mangling the law, opening this national monument to coal mining instead of protecting its scientific, historic and wild heritage. We will not let this stand. We will use the power of the law to stop Trump's illegal actions."</p><p style="">Trump's executive order to revoke and replace Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument came on the heels of a review conducted by Interior Sec. <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ryan-zinke">Ryan Zinke</a>. More than <a href="http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2017/senators-join-public-lands-groups-to-call-on-trump-administration-to-listen-to-overwhelming-public-support-for" target="_blank">2.7 million Americans</a> voiced their support for national monuments across the country, and public participation in the comment period was overwhelmingly in favor of keeping these public lands and waters protected just as they are.</p>
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</p><div id="f672c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="LUP2661576663086"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="937690108354093058" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">'Theft Of Our Heritage': Thousands Protest Trump's Cuts to Utah's National Monuments https://t.co/vaqdtDaAu0 @NRDC… https://t.co/4eviDwn8hp</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/937690108354093058">1512397717.0</a></blockquote></div>
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<p style="">"Despite the call for public comments, Trump never cared that we, the public, wanted him to keep his hands off our monuments," said Chris Krupp, public earth guardian at WildEarth Guardians. "He's not concerned with those of us that camp, hike, fish and hunt. He'd rather give another handout to oil, gas and coal companies."</p><p style="">"The Trump administration's effort to sell out our public lands is deeply unpopular and goes against American values," said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. "We will work to ensure our lands and waters remain open to the public and protected for future generations to explore and enjoy."</p><p style="">President Bill Clinton protected the lands of Grand Staircase <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=51948" target="_blank">as a national monument</a> on Sept. 18, 1996 using the Antiquities Act, a century-old law that has been used by 16 presidents since Theodore Roosevelt to protect some of our nation's most cherished landscapes and cultural heritage. Congress enacted the law in 1906, granting presidents the authority to create national monuments on federal lands to protect significant natural, cultural, historic or scientific features. The Antiquities Act does not, however, grant presidents the authority to diminish or rescind the monument designations of their predecessors.</p><p style="">"President Trump is attempting an unauthorized remodel of the Grand Staircase, knocking out not only geologic steps but cornerstones of the evolution of species, human history, and our cultural heritage as well," said Tim Peterson, Utah Wildlands program director with the Grand Canyon Trust.</p><p style="">"Grand Staircase is a cradle of biodiversity and losing even an acre would be a crime," said Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Scientists have identified nearly four dozen new species of butterflies here. We must protect this monument's wildlife, stunning landscapes and cultural treasures for future generations. Trump and the fossil-fuel industry have picked the wrong battle."</p><p style="">After President Clinton designated Grand Staircase, an intricate land swap between the state and federal government was completed. Congress passed legislation modifying the monument's boundaries in 1998 and then approved a land swap in which the state of Utah received 145,000 acres of mineral-rich federal lands and $50 million from the federal treasury. That $50 million has since gone to support Utah's public schools, and the swap would be <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060053899" target="_blank">incredibly difficult to unravel</a>. The Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration established the Land Exchange Distribution Account to dole out the proceeds from these state-federal trades. At least <a href="https://trustlands.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/SITLA-stewardship-0615.pdf" target="_blank">27 Utah counties</a> have since received a total of $441 million.</p><p style="">Grand Staircase-Escalante has proven a <a href="https://headwaterseconomics.org/wp-content/uploads/Escalante.pdf" target="_blank">tourism and economic boon</a> for Southern Utah since its designation. Between 2001 and 2015, the population in the two counties bordering Grand Staircase grew by 13 percent, jobs increased 24 percent and real personal income grew 32 percent. Travel and tourism boomed in the region, offering 1,630 jobs around Grand Staircase. In the big picture, recreation from adventure-seekers, hikers, amateur geologists and families simply getting outdoors now funnels more than <a href="http://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=5553785&itype=CMSID" target="_blank">$12 billion</a> into Utah's economy.</p><p style="">"I'm a resident of Kanab, and there are a lot of local businesses that are completely dependent on tourism related to Grand Staircase-Escalante," said Laura Welp of Western Watersheds Project, and a former Bureau of Land Management botanist at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. "The entire 'staircase' of spectacular geological layers, with its world-class fossil resources, deserves to be protected intact from the threat of coal mining and other types of commercial exploitation."</p><p style="">"Americans from across the nation should be outraged by President Trump's unlawful attempt to eviscerate the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, one of our country's wildest and most scientifically significant federal public landscapes," said Stephen Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance<strong>,</strong> Utah's largest conservation organization. "No one will look back on this decision in 15, 25 or 50 years and say Trump did the right thing by protecting less of this magnificent place. And by promoting this illegal act, Utah's parochial congressional delegation and local politicians have firmly come down on the wrong side of history."</p>
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national monuments
grand staircase-escalante
utah
earthjustice
wilderness society
grand canyon trust
sierra club
defenders of wildlife
great old broads for wildnerness
center for biological diversity
wildearth guardians
western watersheds project
southern utah wildnerness alliance
nrdc
coal
ryan zinke
Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah in the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Harry Hayashi / ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
President Donald Trump is expected to order a significant downsizing of two national monuments in Utah next week, a move environmentalists have condemned as the "largest rollback of federal land protections ever."
According to leaked documents obtained by the Associated Press, the president plans to shrink Bears Ears National Monument by nearly 85 percent and reduce Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by almost half.
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The plan would gut the 1.35 million-acre Bears Ears to only 201,397 acres and the 1.87 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante to just 997,490 acres. This is a collective loss of more than two million acres of formerly protected land.
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Trump, who will travel to Utah on Monday to formerly announce the decision, is making the move after Interior Sec. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ryan-zinke">Ryan Zinke</a> made recommendations to his boss to sharply downsize the two monuments.
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Fossil fuel-linked advocates have long targeted the areas for oil, gas and coal resources within and around the monuments' boundaries. According to Zinke's <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4052225-Interior-Secretary-Ryan-Zinke-s-Report-to-the.html" target="_blank">leaked memo</a> from his nationwide monuments review over the summer, Grand Staircase-Escalante sits atop "several billion tons" of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal">coal</a>. Coal and oil reserves also surround Bears Ears.
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Environmental groups and tribal leaders have responded to the Associated Press' report with sharp condemnation. The <a href="https://wilderness.org" target="_blank">Wilderness Society </a>and the <a href="https://www.narf.org/" target="_blank">Native American Rights Fund</a> have <a href="https://wilderness.org/resource/maps-boundary-modifications-bears-ears-and-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monuments" target="_blank">released maps</a> of the proposed land reduction.
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"It is no surprise that the Trump Administration is bowing to special interests, including the oil and mining companies, and these maps show how extreme his plans are for some of the most treasured and culturally significant lands in our nation," said Jamie Williams, president of The Wilderness Society.
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“President Trump's attempt to splinter and shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante would be the largest rollback of federal land protections ever," said Mark Salvo, vice president of Landscape Conservation at <a href="https://defenders.org/" target="_blank">Defenders of Wildlife</a>. </p><p>Bears Ears in particular features thousands of Native American archaeological and cultural artifacts.</p><p>
"For us, Bears Ears is a homeland. It always has been and still is," the <a href="http://bearsearscoalition.org/bears-ears-inter-tribal-coalition-condemns-zinke-recommendation-to-eviscerate-bears-ears-national-monument/?utm_content=bufferfd0f1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer" target="_blank">Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition</a> said. "The radical idea of breaking up Bears Ears National Monument is a slap in the face to the members of our Tribes and an affront to Indian people all across the country. Any attempt to eliminate or reduce the boundaries of this Monument would be wrong on every count. Such action would be illegal, beyond the reach of presidential authority."
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Natalie Landreth, an attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, called Trump's action unprecedented and illegal and has already drafted a legal challenge to the move.
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"He will not be able to bask in one day of applause at the Salt Lake City airport" before being sued, she told the AP.
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Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah has said that the monuments in his state locked up too much land and asked Trump to shrink or rescind them.
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“I believe the outcome he is planning to announce strikes an excellent balance where everyone wins," Hatch said Thursday.
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</p><div id="aca44" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="X63CAN1576662590"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="936370455841255424" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Hatch on President Trump's Monument Proclamation: “I believe the outcome he is planning to announce strikes an exce… https://t.co/h87J0OAE2n</div> — Senator Hatch Office (@Senator Hatch Office)<a href="https://twitter.com/senorrinhatch/statuses/936370455841255424">1512083088.0</a></blockquote></div>
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Fate of National Monuments Remains Shrouded in Secrecy: Earthjustice Sues Federal Agencies for Withholding Information From Public
03 November 2017
Popular
Stars illuminate the landscape of Bears Ears National Monument. Earthjustice / Mark Toso
For months, the Interior Department, Bureau of Land Management and the White House Council on Environmental Quality have repeatedly failed to answer the public's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for information related to the Trump administration's ongoing review of national monuments—protected federal lands and waters that belong to the American people.
The review of the country's national monuments has been marked by a lack of transparency—Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke has yet to disclose how he incorporated input from Native American tribes and the 2.8 million Americans who urged protections for national monuments in the public comment period into his leaked draft recommendations to shrink monuments and gut their protections. On Thursday, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit on behalf of six organizations whose requests for information on national monuments have been met with radio silence.
<p style="">"The Trump administration continues its onslaught against America's national monuments, hoping to cover up its misdeeds by blocking public access to information crucial to the protection of these iconic places," said Yvonne Yuting Chi, an attorney in Earthjustice's Rocky Mountains office. "National monuments preserve America's historical heritage, stunning wilderness, geologic wonders, and priceless cultural sites—and they're meant to be protected for future generations under the Antiquities Act. But the Trump administration wants to pretend that the laws of the land have changed. The American people have the right to know the fate of these magnificent places that belong to all of us, and we are taking these agencies to court to get answers."</p><p style="">"It's important that the public knows who had the White House and Interior Department's ear to push the president to dismantle <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bears-ears">Bears Ears</a> and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments," said Stephen Bloch, legal director for the Salt Lake City-based <a href="https://suwa.org/" target="_blank">Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance</a>. "We also expect this lawsuit will shed light on the information and factors the White House Council on Environmental Quality and Interior Department considered as part of Secretary Zinke's 'monuments review' and that led him to recommend eviscerating Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, a decision that would place irreplaceable cultural and public natural resources at risk of damage and destruction."</p>
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</p><div id="f79d8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="LH1QSD1576662404"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="925799938646331393" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Trump to Shrink Utah National Monuments to Allow Drilling, Mining https://t.co/xEHGV1AXZm @EcoWatch</div> — DeSmogBlog (@DeSmogBlog)<a href="https://twitter.com/DeSmogBlog/statuses/925799938646331393">1509562880.0</a></blockquote></div>
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<p style="">Earthjustice is representing the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/" target="_blank">Natural Resources Defense Council</a>, <a href="http://wilderness.org/" target="_blank">The Wilderness Society</a>, <a href="https://www.grandcanyontrust.org/" target="_blank">Grand Canyon Trust</a>, <a href="http://sierraclub.org" target="_blank">Sierra Club</a>, and <a href="http://www.greatoldbroads.org/" target="_blank">Great Old Broads for Wilderness</a> in this lawsuit to compel the agencies to respond to seven FOIA requests, most of which have been overdue for months. The <a href="http://email.prnewswire.com/wf/click?upn=n5ev07v3cJt0VZHKGHPmh-2FA8YRzh1iYwLSo1Lz8Ubytl6LzK3Z0ZQlsfMkqOSreu3xP8Sq1oJgDmy-2Bg3mTIMH6fZ-2BZM-2BY-2BWEZRmEuFcTfBmagX3-2BwmtYfuWoFHM2GAxv2YaBndEWfNakC2DxmVwIAKC4W2I3T6wZVUCTvQbDF-2FC7uLZfpMGxCsCRQ12A-2BMBwVBMbIXI-2FROVDiwmBKxYI-2Bxyc-2Fa9nFJCASoe-2FykoDphPvCMr7SznQomx0XeeApcto_x-2B8b7bjSgm7PP2pr2-2BBei8tMe7aWJwPQx2ba2DAiMBtwlTMpFE1kltRKbCxHSMYJt7KR3xj1j4LwJRRAhW-2Bvq9LOFZmIXAxA0Tho728a43bYhpC1rL2QR3t4g-2FcgTSpYlCYd9gFNsqE975krcAobQTl-2F-2BNuKoIPM-2FBZztU-2FGnEHW5K" target="_blank">complaint</a> alleges that the agencies have failed to meet their response deadlines under the FOIA and have repeatedly rejected or ignored these organizations' inquiries on their requests' status.</p><p style="">"If Interior Secretary Zinke's 'first step' before telling the president to ravage the Bears Ears National Monument was, as he claims, to 'gather the facts,'" said Aaron Paul, a staff attorney with the Grand Canyon Trust, "why are our months-old requests for those already-gathered facts still unanswered when federal law gives the secretary 20 days to respond? It's a shame that we have to turn to the courts to force the secretary to deliver the transparency that the Freedom of Information Act secures for the American public."</p><p style="">"The public deserves to know what Secretary Zinke is recommending for the future of our public lands," said Dan Ritzman, lands, water and wildlife director for Sierra Club's Our Wild America campaign. "The Trump administration's secrecy suggests Zinke is aware that stripping protections from our public lands and monuments is as unpopular as raising fees for the public to enjoy them."</p><p style="">Since 1967, the <a href="http://email.prnewswire.com/wf/click?upn=n5ev07v3cJt0VZHKGHPmh-2FA8YRzh1iYwLSo1Lz8Ubytl6LzK3Z0ZQlsfMkqOSreu3xP8Sq1oJgDmy-2Bg3mTIMH6fZ-2BZM-2BY-2BWEZRmEuFcTfBmagX3-2BwmtYfuWoFHM2GAxv2YaBndEWfNakC2DxmVwIAKC4W2I3T6wZVUCTvQbDF-2FC7uLZfpMGxCsCRQ12A-2BMBwVBMbIXI-2FROVDiwmBKxYI-2B-2F-2Bucq0uLCZ9r6Q9RkD3C0wAPAFUjAS8xHjvj-2BJzaYA0_x-2B8b7bjSgm7PP2pr2-2BBei8tMe7aWJwPQx2ba2DAiMBtwlTMpFE1kltRKbCxHSMYJt7KR3xj1j4LwJRRAhW-2Bvq9LOFZmIXAxA0Tho728a43bYhpC1rL2QR3t4g-2FcgTSpYlCYd9gFNsqE975krcAobQTl-2F-2BNuKoIPM-2FBZztU-2FGnEHT" target="_blank">FOIA</a> has provided the public the right to request access to records from any federal agency. It is a law that keeps the American people in the know about their government. When a member of the public lodges a request with a federal agency under the FOIA, the agency must promptly disclose any information requested unless the information falls under one of the nine exemptions protecting interests such as personal privacy, national security and law enforcement.</p><p style="">"We are dismayed that it takes litigating FOIA requests to learn the fate of public lands that belong to all Americans," said Caroline Munger, Board Chair for Great Old Broads for Wilderness. "This cloak and dagger approach by the current administration on revealing the fate of these national monuments shows a disdain for the law and the legacy of our protected wild lands. Monument proponents like Broads, tribal nations, and others have committed to a long legal battle, if necessary, to protect the Antiquities Act and monuments created under it." </p>
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