March, 25 2009, 04:43pm EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Erin Allweiss, 202-513-6254 or cell: 202-277-8370;
Monty Schmitt, 415-875-6100
Historic Lands Bill Will Restore Water Flow and Salmon to San Joaquin River
Congress Passes Package That Will Protect America's Land, Water and Rivers
WASHINGTON
The U.S. House of Representatives today passed an omnibus public lands package, which includes a landmark settlement to restore water and salmon populations to California's San Joaquin River. This vote will send a bill to the president's desk that provides the additional authority and funding needed to restore runs of thousands of salmon each year. It will also launch projects to improve flood protection and water supply in the Central Valley.
"After so many years of effort, today's historic action by Congress will revitalize California's second longest river," said Monty Schmitt, project manager and senior scientist in the water program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "After recent dry years and a collapsing salmon fishery, passage of this bill is good news for fisherman, farmers, and the more than 22 million Californians who rely on the Sacramento - San Joaquin Delta for their water supply."
The House vote on the omnibus lands bill follows Senate passage last week. The bill comes after a historic legal settlement, reached in 2006, which resolved 18 years of litigation between environmental and fishing groups, Central Valley farmers, and the federal government to undertake one of the nation's most significant river restoration projects.
"This legislation received broad bipartisan support from Republican and Democratic Members of Congress, the affected irrigation districts, the State of California, conservation and fishing groups, and urban water agencies," said Hal Candee of Altshuler Berzon LLP, who has represented NRDC and 13 other conservation and fishing groups in the litigation and the three-year old settlement effort. "It's gratifying to see Congress provide its final approval to this historic settlement that will restore one of California's major rivers."
Added Monty Schmitt: "This legislation will provide the final approval needed for a landmark restoration program that is already underway. Ultimately, restoring salmon to the San Joaquin River is critical to revitalizing California's ailing salmon fishery, which was closed for the first time in the State's history due to record low numbers of salmon, costing the state an estimated $255 million and 2,263 jobs."
The Omnibus Public Lands Package contains 160 public lands, water and resources bills, as well as 16 wilderness bills from nine states. In addition to funding the restoration of the San Joaquin, the bill:
- Designates more than 2 million acres of wilderness in nine states
- Establishes three new national park units, a new national monument, three new national conservation areas, more than 1,000 miles of national wild and scenic rivers and four new national trails
- Enlarges the boundaries of more than a dozen existing national park units and establishes 10 new national heritage areas
NRDC works to safeguard the earth--its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends. We combine the power of more than three million members and online activists with the expertise of some 700 scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates across the globe to ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water, and the wild.
(212) 727-2700LATEST NEWS
'Incomprehensible': Liberal Justices Blast SCOTUS Decision Allowing Trump to Resume Third Country Deportations
"The government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard," wrote Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Jun 24, 2025
The Supreme Court on Monday temporarily lifted a lower court order that had required the Trump administration to give migrants the chance to challenge their deportation to a country other than their nation of origin, clearing the way for resumption of such removals and prompting a strongly worded dissent from the three liberal justices.
The conservative majority behind the ruling did not offer a rationale for the order, but said that the preliminary injunction handed down by a district court judge in April is stayed, pending appeal.
"Totally unexplained Supreme Court ruling on 3rd-country deportations will produce widespread confusion in lower courts. Did the court object to nationwide aspect? Think judges lacked jurisdiction? Something else? Who knows?" wrotePolitico's senior legal affairs reporter Josh Gerstein, offering a prediction of what's to come.
Trump administration efforts to deport immigrants to countries they are not from has become one of the most contentious aspects of U.S. President Donald Trump's crackdown on immigration.
In May, the Trump administration put eight men, most of whom are not from South Sudan, on a flight said to be headed to South Sudan, though the flight instead landed in Djibouti. The men have been held in Djibouti since. U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy told Trump administration officials that they "unquestionably" violated a court order he issued in April when it attempted to carry out those third-country deportations to South Sudan.
The Supreme Court's order stays that ruling from Murphy issued in April, which directed the Trump administration not to deport immigrants to countries other than their home countries without giving them adequate notice to raise concerns that they might face danger if sent there.
However, "in an order Monday, Murphy said the eight men in Djibouti remain protected from immediate removal despite the Supreme Court's ruling, referencing another order he had issued last month—separate from the one put on hold by the Supreme Court," according to ABC News.
In a blistering dissent, Sotomayor wrote that the ruling exposes "thousands to the risk of torture or death" and comes down on the side of the Trump administration even though it had violated the lower court's order. Sotomayor was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson
"The government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard," she wrote in her dissent.
"Apparently," she continued, "the court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in farflung locales more palatable than the remote possibility that a District Court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled. That use of discretion is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable."
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called the ruling a victory on Monday. "DHS can now execute its lawful authority and remove illegal aliens to a country willing to accept them," she said in a statement. "Fire up the deportation planes."
"When you think it can't get worse, it does!" said Jill Wine-Banks, an MSNBC legal analyst, in response to the ruling.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Says Iran and Israel Agree to Cease-Fire
"Let's hope it's real," said CodePink's Medea Benjamin. "But let's also stay clear-eyed. And let's demand a cease-fire where it's urgently needed: Gaza."
Jun 23, 2025
President Donald Trump said Monday that Israel and Iran have agreed to a "complete and total cease-fire" following 12 days of escalating attacks, including unprovoked U.S. attacks on multiple Iranian civilian nuclear facilities meant to be under international protection.
"It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE (in approximately 6 hours from now, when Israel and Iran have wound down and completed their in progress, final missions!), for 12 hours, at which point the War will be considered, ENDED!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social network.
"Officially, Iran will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 12th Hour, Israel will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 24th Hour, an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR will be saluted by the World," Trump added. "During each CEASEFIRE, the other side will remain PEACEFUL and RESPECTFUL."
A senior Iranian official toldReuters that Tehran has agreed to a cease-fire following persuasion from Qatar, which hours earlier was the site of a symbolic Iranian missile attack on a base housing thousands of U.S. troops.
"Trump says there's a cease-fire between Israel and Iran. Is it true? We don't know but if it is, it's great news," Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CodePink, said on social media following the president's post. "Because Iran has been under attack. The world has been on edge. And while a cease-fire would be a tremendous relief, let's not forget: Trump lies."
Trump says there’s a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Is it true? We don’t know but if it is, it’s great news.
Because Iran has been under attack. The world has been on edge. And while a ceasefire would be a tremendous relief, let’s not forget:
Trump lies.
Israel violates… pic.twitter.com/MZbxAc0nEu
— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) June 23, 2025
"Israel violates cease-fires all the time in Gaza, in Lebanon," Benjamin continued. "Israel has nuclear weapons. Iran does not. The U.S. and Israel have attacked Iran illegally. So yes, let's hope it's real. But let's also stay clear-eyed. And let's demand a cease-fire where it's urgently needed: Gaza."
"No more starvation. No more bombings," she added. "No more fake 'humanitarian corridors.'"
Keep ReadingShow Less
'There Was No Imminent Threat,' Says Sen. Chris Murphy After Iran Intelligence Briefing
The Connecticut Democrat blasted Donald Trump as "a weak and dangerously reckless president."
Jun 23, 2025
In addition to pushing back against U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson's claim that President Donald Trump "made the right call" attacking Iran's nuclear sites, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy on Monday spelled out "ideas that should guide Americans' thinking as they digest the hourly news updates during the early days of what may become yet another American war of choice in the Middle East."
Johnson (R-La.) claimed in a Saturday night post on the social media site X that "leaders in Congress were aware of the urgency of this situation and the commander-in-chief evaluated that the imminent danger outweighed the time it would take for Congress to act."
Responding early Monday, Murphy (D-Conn.) said that "there was no imminent threat. I got briefed on the same intelligence as the speaker."
"This is also a moment for the American people to stand up and say we do not want another war in the Middle East."
That echoed a statement the senator put out on Sunday, in which he said that "I've been briefed on the intelligence—there is no evidence Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States. That makes this attack illegal."
"Only Congress can declare preemptive war, and we should vote as soon as possible on legislation to explicitly deny President Trump the authorization to drag us into a conflict in Middle East that could get countless Americans killed and waste trillions of dollars," he added, calling Trump "a weak and dangerously reckless president."
Murphy—a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations—also published a long piece on his Senate website on Monday, stressing eight key points:
- There is an industry in Washington that profits from war, and so it's no surprise that the merits of conflict are dangerously overhyped and the risks are regularly underestimated.
- Almost every war plan our military has devised for the Middle East and North Africa in the last two decades has been a failure.
- The strikes are illegal, and a major setback for the international rule of law that has undergirded American security for 75 years.
- You cannot bomb knowledge out of existence. Iran knows how to make a nuclear bomb.
- We didn't need to start a war with Iran because we know—for sure—that diplomacy can work.
- Even opponents of this strike need to admit Iran is weak, and we cannot know for sure what the future holds.
- There are many very, very bad potential consequences of Trump's attack. The worst consequence, of course, is a full-blown war in the region that draws in the United States.
- Israel is our ally and Iran IS a threat to their people, but we should never allow Israeli domestic politics to draw us into a war.
"This is a moment where Congress needs to step in," Murphy argued. "This week, we are likely to take a vote that makes it crystal clear President Trump does not have the authorization for these strikes or a broader war with Iran."
"This is also a moment for the American people to stand up and say we do not want another war in the Middle East," he added, recalling the U.S. invasion of Iraq. "In the last 20 years, we have seen the untold damage done—the lives lost, the billions of dollars wasted, and our reputation squandered—and we won't allow Trump to take us down that path again."
After Tehran on Monday responded to Trump's attack by firing missiles at a base in Qatar that houses American forces and, reportedly, a site in Iraq, the U.S. president announced on his Truth Social network a cease-fire between Iran and Israel—which was bombing its Middle East opponent before the United States started also doing so.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular