March, 07 2011, 11:58am EDT
Senate Calls for Wolf Delisting in Budget Bill
Provision would strip ESA protections for wolves in Idaho, Montana and surrounding region
OAKLAND, Calif.
Today the US Senate released a Continuing Resolution to fund federal government operations for the remainder of the fiscal year that calls for delisting of wolves in Montana and Idaho. The bill directs the Secretary of the Interior to reissue a wolf delisting rule first issued in 2009 that removed Endangered Species Act protection from wolves in Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and northern Utah. The rule retained federal protections for wolves in Wyoming, which has thus far refused to produce a wolf management plan that the US Fish and Wildlife Service deems adequate. A federal court in Montana struck down the 2009 delisting rule, finding that it violated the Endangered Species Act. The wolf delisting language in the budget bill states that, once reinstated, the delisting rule will not be subject to judicial review.
Idaho and Montana are eager to commence wolf hunting, which will be permitted if the Senate's budget bill passes.
The following is a statement from Earthjustice attorney Jenny Harbine:
"Congress adopted the Endangered Species Act to protect species from social intolerance and shifting political winds. This bill reverses nearly four decades of Congressional wisdom by subjecting wolves to these very threats. What species will be targeted next?
Wolves are an indispensible part of the northern Rockies landscape. Congressional delisting will allow the northern Rockies wolf population to be hunted down to unsustainable levels."
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
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'Fighting for Our Lives': Youth Sue to Block Utah Fossil Fuel Permits
"Some days I can't even go outside because the air is so polluted," said one plaintiff. "I get headaches, feel dizzy when it’s too hot, and sometimes I can't even see down my own street because of smoke from wildfires."
Dec 01, 2025
Following the Utah Supreme Court's dismissal of a youth-led constitutional climate lawsuit earlier this year, 10 young Utahns on Monday launched a new case intended to block state permits for coal, gas, and oil development.
Backed by Our Children's Trust—a legal group behind various youth climate suits, including Juliana v. United States and Held v. State of Montana—the plaintiffs are suing the Utah Board of Oil, Gas, and Mining; the Division of Oil, Gas, and Mining; and the director of the latter, Mick Thomas, in state court.
"Plaintiffs bring this action to protect their fundamental rights to life, health, and safety that defendants are violating by permitting fossil fuel development, when doing so is harmful, unnecessary, and more expensive than clean, renewable forms of energy," says the complaint.
"Due to localized air and climate pollution caused by defendants' permitting activities, plaintiffs live in some of the worst air quality of any state in the nation and face climate disruptions, including elevated temperatures and deadly heatwaves, frequent and severe wildfires and smoke, exceptional drought, exacerbated medical conditions, and increased health risks," the filing continues.
"Defendants' fossil fuel permitting challenged here is unconstitutional because it harms the health and safety of plaintiffs, interferes with their healthy development, and takes years off of their lives," the document adds.
When the Utah Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of the earlier lawsuit in March, Our Children's Trust called it a "partial win" because, as lead attorney Andrew Welle explained at the time, "the decision opens a clear path forward for continuing our challenge to the state's actions in promoting fossil fuel development."
🚨Ten Utah youth filed a constitutional climate lawsuit against their state for issuing fossil fuel permits that endanger their health, lives, and safety. Learn more: bit.ly/49LVqA0
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— Our Children’s Trust (@youthvgov.bsky.social) December 1, 2025 at 4:07 PM
The lead plaintiff for both cases is Natalie Roberts, an 18-year-old who lives in Salt Lake City. In April, the American Lung Association's annual State of the Air report gave the state capital's metro area an "F" grade for both ground-level ozone (smog) and particle (soot) pollution.
"Both ozone and particle pollution can cause premature death and other serious health effects such as asthma attacks, heart attacks and strokes, preterm births, and impaired cognitive functioning later in life. Particle pollution can also cause lung cancer," said Nick Torres, advocacy director for the American Lung Association, in a statement when the report was released.
"Unfortunately, too many people in the Salt Lake City metro area are living with unhealthy levels of ozone and particle pollution," Torres continued. "This air pollution is causing kids to have asthma attacks, making people who work outdoors sick and unable to work, and leading to low birth weight in babies. We urge Utah policymakers to take action to improve our air quality, and we are calling on everyone to support the incredibly important work of the US Environmental Protection Agency."
Roberts, in a Monday statement, shared her experiences with her city's polluted air and increasingly hot temperatures.
"Some days I can't even go outside because the air is so polluted," the teenager said. "I get headaches, feel dizzy when it's too hot, and sometimes I can't even see down my own street because of smoke from wildfires. I worry every day about my health, my future, and what kind of world I'll live in if the state keeps approving these fossil fuel permits. We're fighting for our lives and asking the court to protect us before it's too late."
The complaint details similar experiences by other plaintiffs. When 21-year-old Park City resident Sedona Murdock "is exposed to dangerous air quality, she experiences pain in her chest and lungs, difficulty breathing, and coughing, and it can trigger life-threatening asthma attacks," it says. "Sedona experiences stress and anxiety because of the harms to her health that she has already suffered."
Otis W. and Lev W., brothers from Salt Lake City who are respectively 16 and 13, "experience painful headaches from bad air quality and have often had days where their schools have not allowed them or their peers to go outside," according to the filing. "Increasingly intense rain events have resulted in flooding and water intrusion in Otis and Lev's home, threatening their shelter and presenting a risk of dangerous mold growth."
"Decreased snowfall, snowpack, precipitation, and warming temperatures are diminishing water sources that provide water for Otis and Lev's family and community, threatening their water security," the complaint says. "Several trees in Otis and Lev's yard that provided shade for their home have already died from increased heat and drought conditions, making their home hotter and increasing the dangers to them of rising temperatures and heatwaves."
The document also points out how the pair and other youth plaintiffs have had to alter or abandon beloved outdoor activities, from team sports such as soccer to camping, hiking, mountain biking, rafting, running, and skiing, because of the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.
"The state cannot continue issuing fossil fuel permits that put children's lives and health in jeopardy," said Welle, the lead attorney. "This case is about holding Utah accountable to its constitutional obligations to protect youth from serious harm caused by air pollution, climate impacts, and unsafe fossil fuel development. The court now has what it says it needs to hear and decide this case and prevent further harm to these young people and ensure the state governs responsibly."
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White House Claims Trump 'Has the Authority to Kill' Survivors of Boat Strikes
One legal expert called the press secretary's remarks "painful" to watch and warned of "how the reported patently illegal orders will affect US service members."
Dec 01, 2025
While continuing to deny that the Pentagon chief ordered those carrying out the first known US military strike on an alleged drug-running boat to "kill everybody" on board, the top White House spokesperson on Monday reiterated the administration's position that President Donald Trump has the authority to take out anyone he deems a "narco-terrorist."
Rights advocates, legal scholars, American lawmakers, and leaders from other countries have condemned the boat bombings in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean, which began on September 2, as murders, and rejected the Trump administration's argument to Congress that the strikes are justified because the United States is in an "armed conflict" with drug cartels.
A week after the first bombing, the Intercept reported that people on board survived but were killed in a follow-up attack. The Washington Post provided more details on Friday, including that Adm. Frank M. "Mitch" Bradley ordered a second strike on two survivors to fulfill US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's alleged directive to kill everyone.
CNN also spoke with an unnamed source who confirmed Hegseth's supposed edict—which the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, denied on Monday.
During Monday's press briefing, NBC News White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez noted Trump's "confidence" in Hegseth's claim that he did not give an explicit order to kill everyone on the first vessel, and asked Leavitt, "Does the administration deny that that second strike happened, or did it happen and the administration denies that Secretary Hegseth gave the order?"
"The latter is true," Leavitt said. She then read a statement that she often referred back to throughout the briefing:
President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war. With respect to the strikes in question on September 2, Secretary Hegseth authorized Adm. Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Adm. Bradley worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.
"And I would just add one more point," Leavitt continued, "to remind the American public why these lethal strikes are taking place: Because this administration has designated these narco-terrorists as a foreign terrorist organizations, the president has a right to take them out if they are threatening the United States of America, and if they are bringing illegal narcotics that are killing our citizens at a record rate—which is what they are doing."
Asked by Gutierrez to confirm Bradley ordered the second strike, Leavitt did so, saying that "he was well within his right to do so."
Multiple other reporters also inquired about the recent reporting, including Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich, who said: "You said that the follow-up strike was lawful. What law is it that allows no survivors?"
Leavitt responded: "The strike conducted on September 2 was conducted in self-defense to protect Americans and vital United States interests. The strike was conducted in international waters and in accordance with the law of armed conflict."
Noting that exchange on social media, former Congressman Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, said: "This is not how self-defense works. Everyone understands that self-defense requires an immediate physical threat and proportionality. Repelling a missile attack with a missile is self-defense. Blowing up boats hundreds of miles from US shores is not. This isn't complicated."
"This is not how self-defense works... Repelling a missile attack with a missile is self-defense. Blowing up boats hundreds of miles from US shores is not.
Ryan Goodman, a former Pentagon special counsel who's now a New York University law professor and Just Security coeditor-in-chief, also weighed in. "This has got to be one of [the] most painful responses to watch," he said, also pointing out that "the 'law' Leavitt cites is utterly irrelevant (self-defense is non sequitur, it's not armed conflict, and 'no survivors' is a crime)."
"Part of the pain in watching that response is knowing how the reported patently illegal orders will affect US service members," Goodman added, referring to a new Just Security essay by Mark P. Nevitt, a retired judge advocate general who is now an associate law professor at Emory University.
Notably, Trump suggested last month that Democratic members of Congress who previously served in the US military and intelligence service and recently warned service members of their duty not to comply with illegal orders should be hanged. The Pentagon has since threatened to court-martial one of them: Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a retired US Navy captain.
c by CBS News senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang about Hegseth's reported spoken directive to kill everybody on the boat. Using Trump's preferred term for the Defense Department's leader, she said: "I saw that quoted in a Washington Post story. I would reject that the secretary of war ever said that. However, the president has made it quite clear that if narco-terrorists... are trafficking illegal drugs toward the United States, he has the authority to kill them, and that's what this administration is doing."
According to a CNN timeline, from September 2 to November 15, at least 22 US boat strikes killed 83 people and left two survivors who were initially taken onto a warship but ultimately returned to their home countries of Colombia and Ecuador.
So far, Congress has failed to advance war powers resolutions intended to stop Trump's boat-bombing spree. However, since the Post reporting, top Democrats on both the US House and Senate Armed Services Committees have promised vigorous oversight.
Following Leavitt's remarks on Monday, the New Republic's Greg Sargent said that "it's doubly relevant that Adm. Bradley is in talks about briefing the House Armed Services Committee," and pointed to his new interview with Congressman Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the panel's ranking member.
The congressman told Sargent he will pressure GOP members of the committee, including Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), to "use whatever leverage is available to us to try to get answers," including subpoenaing top civilian and military officials.
Smith also discussed the reporting during a weekend appearance on MS NOW. Posting a clip of it on social media Monday, he declared that "Americans want to live in a constitutional republic, not an authoritarian dictatorship."
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on the chamber's floor Monday that "I don’t think we have ever seen someone so unserious, so childish, so obviously insecure serving as secretary of defense as Pete Hegseth—and that should alarm every single one of us."
Schumer called on Hegseth to release the tapes "that would show exactly what happened during these military strikes," and to "come before the Congress to testify under oath about the nature of his order, the evidence supporting the strikes, and an explanation for what the goals are in Venezuela."
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Over 150 Religious Orgs Endorse Salvadoran Mining Ban Reversed by Bukele
A joint letter expresses "steadfast support for the people of El Salvador and their religious institutions and leaders who are struggling to maintain their country’s historic ban on metal mining... so all Salvadorans can enjoy their God-given right to clean water."
Dec 01, 2025
More than 150 faith-based organizations from 25 countries launched an open letter on Monday supporting an El Salvadoran ban on metals mining that was overturned by right-wing President Nayib Bukele in 2024.
The original ban was passed by the country’s legislature in 2017 following years of study and the advocacy of El Salvador’s religious communities. The letter signatories, which include 153 global and regional groups from a wide range of traditions, stood with faith groups in El Salvador in calling both for no new mining and for an end to the political persecution of land and water defenders.
"We, the undersigned, from a diversity of church structures (representing local, regional, and national expressions of churches and related agencies), express our steadfast support for the people of El Salvador and their religious institutions and leaders who are struggling to maintain their country’s historic ban on metal mining—in place from 2017 to 2024—so all Salvadorans can enjoy their God-given right to clean water," the letter begins. "We stand in solidarity with civic and religious leaders who are being persecuted and imprisoned for working against injustices, including the devastation that metals mining would cause their communities."
The faith leaders also released a video reading sections of the letter aloud.
“This letter is a hope-filled expression of solidarity and humanism."
“Through this declaration, faith communities from around the world have affirmed their solidarity with faith leaders in El Salvador as they carry out their duty to protect water as a sacred inherited trust, a human right meant to be shared by all,” Rev. Dr. Japhet Ndhlovu, executive minister for the Church in the Mission Unit of The United Church of Canada, said in a statement.
El Salvadorans already struggle to gain access to clean and plentiful water. The water of 90% of Salvadorans is contaminated, half of all Salvadorans have "intermittent access to water,” and one-half of those with water access report it is poor quality, said Gordon Whitman, managing director for international organizing at letter-signatory Faith in Action, at a Monday press briefing anouncing the letter.
"Restarting mining would be catastrophic," Whitman said.
The mining ban was already hard won.
A 2012 study commissioned by the government affirmed that mining would endanger the nation’s rivers and watersheds with cyanide, arsenic, and other toxins and found widespread public opposition to mining. Before the ban was passed in March of 2017, the archbishop of San Salvador mobilized support for it by leading a march to deliver a draft of the ban to the National Assembly. After it passed unanimously, he called it a "miracle," according to John Cavanagh, a senior adviser at the Institute for Policy Studies.
The law made El Salvador "the first nation on Earth to ban mining to save its rivers," Cavanagh said at the press briefing.
“The Salvadoran precautionary approach banning metal mining is essential to protect drinking water and aquatic ecosystems, given the irreparable damage that has been done by irresponsible mining around the world,” Willamette University professor emeritus Susan Lea Smith of the Ecumenical Water Network of the World Council of Churches said in a statement. “El Salvador had made a difficult but wise choice in banning metal mining. Clean water is a gift from God, and so, for the sake of clean water and the rest of Creation, we work together for the common good."
"It is a sin to render water undrinkable.”
However, in December 2024, Bukele's government passed a new law that allows mining once again without environmental oversight or community consultation.
“It’s a law that has become one of the main threats for the Salvadorans' right to clean water," Pedro Cabezas of International Allies Against Mining in El Salvador said in the press conference.
Cabezas also said the new law was a "symptom of what El Salvador has been going through over the last five years” as Bukele concentrates all power within the executive and his own party.
While the Salvadoran public and civil society groups remain opposed to mining—a December 2024 poll found that 3 in 5 are against the practice in the country—the Bukele government has ramped up its criminalization of dissent.
In this context, the Catholic, protestant, and evangelical churches in El Salvador are among the remaining institutions "with space to speak out" against mining, Christie Neufeldt of the United Church of Canada explained at the briefing.
For example, in March, Mons. José Luis Escobar Alas, the archbishop of San Salvador, presented an anti-mining petition signed by 150,000 people.
International faith groups wanted to stand in solidarity with their Salvadoran counterparts.
“This letter is a hope-filled expression of solidarity and humanism in the face of forces that would degrade” the Earth, human rights, and democracy, Neufeldt said.
Salvadoran faith groups "remind us that access to water is a fundamental human right and that clean water is not a commodity, but a shared inheritance entrusted to all people by God. And they remind us that ending the mining ban is fueling egregious rights violations against those organizing to protect their water and land from destruction," the letter says.
Whitman spoke about the importance of water to several religious traditions.
“All of our faith traditions teach that water is a sacred gift of God,” Whitman said, adding, "It is a sin to render water undrinkable.”
In the press briefing, speakers acknowledged the link between rising authoritarianism and environmental deregulation, in El Salvador and beyond.
Cavanagh noted that, as the energy transition increases demand for rare earth minerals and global instability makes gold more attractive, "oligarchs linked to extractivism" have begun "pumping money into elections” to boost candidates who will allow them to exploit resources.
“It’s not at all surprising that the opposition to mining comes from the people, and so it’s absolutely natural that the oligarchs, that the transnational corporations are going to want to crack down on public dissent," Smith said, adding there was an "intimate connection between authoritarianism and any extractive industry, including mining."
In the end, however, the letter signatories expressed faith for a greener, freer future.
"We pray for the Salvadoran people and their government, that they protect the sacred gift of creation, uphold human rights, and ensure every family clean water—now and for generations to come," they concluded.
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