The Trump administration is stampeding ahead with a rewrite of the regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This landmark law requires federal agencies to study—and let the public weigh in on—the environmental impacts of federal actions. Ironically, given NEPA’s central purpose of including the public in environmental decision-making, the Trump administration is […]
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*This piece is authored by Talasi Brooks, Staff Attorney at Western Watersheds Project
President Trump’s proposed new rollbacks of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations will not only accelerate destructive infrastructure projects, they will also cut environmental concerns out of decision-making for livestock grazing on millions of acres of public lands. Where […]
Continue Reading →I recently got a survey from a mountain biking advocate asking me if I agreed with the premise that bikes belong in designated wilderness.
This person justified mountain bike access to wilderness and recommended wilderness areas because they maintain trails and create new trails that are open to hikers and horse riders. And oh, by […]
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The Recording the Feds Tried to Hide Reveals Parts of the Plan
By Kelly Fuller, Western Watersheds Project
You gotta say one thing for folks who share the views of Karen Budd-Falen and the Bundys: They never miss a chance to push their agenda of turning your public lands over to their […]
Continue Reading →Newly approved vegetation “treatment” project is questionable, expensive
News release. Western Watersheds Project
BOISE, Idaho — Today, the Bureau of Land Management approved a plan to log off or tear out native juniper trees from 617,000 acres of public land in Idaho. The agency will cut, shred, and burn juniper trees under the guise […]
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Recently Colorado U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton was quoted during a congressional hearing of the House Natural Resource Committee recommending the government enlist ranchers and farmers to better protect federal lands.
“Some of the best custodians for public lands happen to be our ranchers,” Tipton, R- Cortez, said.
Tipton is ignoring the full […]
Continue Reading →Wild bighorn sheep once were found throughout the West. Roaming high alpine ridges of the Rockies to the badlands of the Dakotas to the deserts of Arizona and California, bighorns were adapted to a wide variety of climates and terrain and some estimate they numbered in two million or more animals.
But these iconic western […]
Continue Reading →Wyoming counties are currently involved the Public Lands Initiative. Ostensibly the purpose is to determine which Wilderness Study Areas (WSA) should be designated as wilderness and which areas will be released to other land exploitation. Across Wyoming, there are 42 WSAs on BLM lands and three WSAs on Forest Service lands, totaling over […]
Continue Reading →Why Collaboration Won’t Protect our Public Lands By Rick Meis, Halfway, OR
Collaboration is a process of playing two sides off against each other in order to create enough guilt in one or all the parties that a compromise is reached. The primary problem is that it is specifically NOT based on science […]
Continue Reading →The Challis Messenger carried an article about the voluntary retirement of grazing privileges on the Wildhorse allotment of the Challis National Forest. http://www.challismessenger.com/articles/2018/01/18/another-livestock-grazing-permit-relinquished
The article quotes County Commissioner Randy Corgatelli who said: “We can’t keep losing AUMs” (animal unit months), Corgatelli said. “It hurts the economy of Custer County.”
Corgatelli’s statement is more hyperbole […]
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