In an act of appalling hubris, the oil and gas industry is asking the federal government to loosen enforcement of federal regulations on public lands in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Kathleen Sgamma of the Western Energy Alliance, one of the petroleum industry’s primary lobbying groups, was quoted in EnergyWire as seeking one-year extensions […]
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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 […]
Continue Reading →Matt Shea (R-Spokane), a member of the Washington State House of Representatives, has been kicked out of the Republican caucus for planning, engaging in, or supporting Cliven Bundy domestic terrorism. It’s about time elected officials stood up to his family efforts to take away our public lands. . . Ralph Maughan, editor
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Ranchers seeking to extend grazing leases at Point Reyes National Seashore have found a new ally in Donald Trump.
At a signing ceremony for two Executive Orders at the White House earlier this month, Point Reyes rancher Kevin Lunny was a featured speaker. He used his 30 seconds of broadcast fame to complain about […]
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Collaboration on environmental issues is pushed by big funders and by consulting groups, but so far has borne only bitter fruit for conservationists. Favored by shrewd industrial interests who recognize collaboration as a means to greenwash environmentally harmful activities, this practice undermines the enforcement of environmental laws and regulations. Commercial interests often engage in […]
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The Tim Ferriss Show just released a two-hour podcast this week, interviewing Mike Phillips, one of the biologists who spearheaded the successful wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone National Park in the early 1990s, a long-serving Montana legislator, and currently a professional conservationist leading efforts to get gray wolves restored to the mountains of western Colorado.
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The livestock industry and its apologists are trying out a new spin to justify their unwillingness to coexist with native wildlife, arguing that it is necessary to kill large predators from time to time to appease the locals and create “social tolerance.” This is a false and self-serving narrative, and is causing a public backlash […]
Continue Reading →Federal Proposal Would Halt Wolf Recovery, Allow More Wolf Killing WASHINGTON, DC— Almost two million Americans stated their opposition to the Trump administration’s proposal to strip endangered species protections from gray wolves in a comment period that closed today. This is one of the largest numbers of comments ever submitted on a federal decision involving […]
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Western Watersheds Project (the organization that I am the Executive Director of), WildEarth Guardians and the Center for Biological Diversity are fighting the reinstatement of grazing on four allotments in eastern Oregon that are permitted to Hammond Ranches. In part, we argue that the Hammonds don’t have a great track record and are thus undeserving […]
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With the arrival of Earth Day, I would like to suggest a gift of immense value that USDA Wildlife Services could give to all the residents of Idaho: A permanent end to the use of M-44 ‘cyanide bombs’ statewide.
These devices are planted like land mines to poison coyotes and other […]
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