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For Immediate Release
May, 09 2019, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Clare Lakewood, Center for Biological Diversity, (415) 316-8615, clakewood@biologicaldiversity.org
Gabby Brown, Sierra Club, (914) 261-4626, gabby.brown@sierraclub.org
MARINA, Calif
The Trump administration today finalized a plan to open 725,500 acres of public lands and mineral estate across California's Central Coast and the Bay Area to new oil and gas drilling. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management plan is an increase of nearly 327,000 acres from the draft proposal prepared under the Obama administration.
The public lands earmarked for leasing in today's resource management plan are in the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, Merced, Monterey, San Benito, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Stanislaus.
"Trump's new plan aims to stab oil derricks and fracking rigs into some of California's most beautiful landscapes," said Clare Lakewood, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. "From Monterey to the Bay Area, the president wants to let oil companies drill and spill their way across our beloved public lands and wildlife habitat. As we fight climate chaos, there's no justification for any new drilling and fracking, let alone this outrageous assault on our pristine wild places."
Today's move comes just weeks after the Trump administration released its draft plan to reopen more than a million acres of public land and federal mineral estate in the Central California region (including Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura counties) to fossil fuel extraction. Together the plans target a total of 1,736,970 acres across 19 California counties.
The plans would end a five-year-old moratorium on leasing federal public land and mineral estate in the state to oil companies. The BLM has not held a single lease sale in California since 2013, when a judge ruled that the agency violated the law when it issued oil leases in Monterey and Fresno Counties without considering the risks of fracking. The ruling responded to a suit brought by the Center and the Sierra Club challenging a BLM decision to auction off about 2,500 acres of land in those counties to oil companies.
Fracking is an extreme oil-extraction process that blasts toxic chemicals mixed with water underground to crack rocks. According to the BLM, about 90 percent of new oil and gas wells on public lands are fracked.
A 2015 report from the California Council on Science and Technology concluded that fracking in California happens at unusually shallow depths, dangerously close to underground drinking water supplies, with unusually high concentrations of toxic chemicals.
In 2016 Monterey County voters passed Measure Z, which bans fracking, new oil and gas wells and new waste-injection wells. San Benito County voters have also passed a ballot measure banning fracking. Alameda County has passed an ordinance banning fracking, and Santa Cruz County has passed an ordinance banning fracking and all other oil and gas development.
The BLM's regulations provide a 60-day window for Gov. Gavin Newsom to review the plan for any inconsistencies with state and local plans and policies and provide recommendations. If the BLM rejects such recommendations, the governor can appeal that determination.
Other parties may also protest the plan and file a lawsuit if the protest is denied.
"In California and across the country, the Trump administration is putting our communities and our climate at risk as they prioritize fossil fuel industry profits over the health and safety of our families," said Monica Embrey, a Sierra Club senior campaign representative. "We will use every tool at our disposal to push back against this reckless proposal and protect our public lands from fracking."
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
(520) 623-5252LATEST NEWS
Trump's Strait of Hormuz Ploy Aims to Manufacture 'Pretext for Escalation,' Iran Warns
"Any American interference in the new maritime regime of the Strait of Hormuz will be considered a violation of the ceasefire," said a member of the Iranian Parliament.
May 04, 2026
Iranian officials warned Sunday that US President Donald Trump's newly announced plan to help "guide" stranded ships out of the Strait of Hormuz is an attempted provocation aimed at justifying additional military action against the Middle Eastern country.
An unnamed senior Iranian official told Drop Site that Trump's plan, announced on Truth Social and confirmed by the US military, "is primarily intended to provoke Iran into taking an initial step toward confrontation, thereby creating a pretext for escalation and enabling him to justify further military action in response to an Iranian initiative."
The official added that "our definitive position is that any commercial vessel attempting to transit through designated restricted routes without prior coordination will be promptly intercepted by Iranian forces."
"Should US military vessels respond, such actions would be met with an immediate and corresponding response from Iran," the official continued. "The US military vessels are far from the corridor area. If commercial vessels attempt to move, they would be engaged well before reaching any American ships," the official added. "Trump has effectively turned them into bargaining tools in his political game."
Ebrahim Azizi, who heads the national security commission of the Iranian Parliament, warned in response to Trump's plan that "any American interference in the new maritime regime of the Strait of Hormuz will be considered a violation of the ceasefire" that took effect in early April.
"The Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf would not be managed by Trump's delusional posts," Azizi added.
Trump wrote on his social media platform on Sunday that his administration has told countries with vessels stranded in the vital strait that "we will guide their Ships safely out of these restricted Waterways, so that they can freely and ably get on with their business." Iran closed the strait—through which around 25% of the world's seaborne oil trade and a third of global fertilizer trade flows each year—in response to the US-Israeli war as well as the Trump administration's naval blockade against Iran.
The US president characterized his plan, which is titled Project Freedom and set to take effect on Monday, as a "humanitarian gesture on behalf of the United States," but provided few details on how it would work.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on Sunday that military support for Project Freedom would "include guided-missile destroyers, over 100 land and sea-based aircraft, multi-domain unmanned platforms, and 15,000 servicemembers."
"Last week, the U.S. Department of State announced a new initiative, in partnership with the Department of War, to enhance coordination and information sharing among international partners in support of maritime security in the strait," CENTCOM said. "The Maritime Freedom Construct aims to combine diplomatic action with military coordination, which will be critical during Project Freedom."
Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the US Program at the International Crisis Group, wrote that CENTCOM's statement makes the president's plan "sound like information-sharing backed by a vague threat of military action."
The president's scheme drew immediate support from one of the most vocal boosters of the Iran war, US Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who said he "totally" agrees with Trump's decision to launch Project Freedom.
"I hope this conflict can end diplomatically," said Graham, "but it is now time to regain freedom of navigation and forcefully respond to Iran if they insist on terrorizing the world."
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'We Are Focused on Ending the War,' Says Iranian Foreign Ministry After Trump Threatens More Suffering
“We are currently concentrated on ending the war in the region, including in Lebanon,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei, who added that "no nuclear negotiations” are happening at this stage.
May 03, 2026
A spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry on Sunday said the Iranian leadership is reviewing the response issued by the US government over the weekend following a 14-point plan offered by Tehran to bring the unpopular war started by President Donald Trump—now in its third month—to an end.
“The Americans have given their answer to Iran’s 14-point plan to the Pakistani side, and we are currently reviewing it,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said in an interview with Iranian television.
Baghaei said that the offered framework is strictly focused on ending the immediate hostilities and that the plan contains "absolutely no details regarding the country’s nuclear issues," which he suggested could be discussed at a later time.
“We are not currently engaged in any negotiations over the nuclear issue, and decisions about the future will be made in due course,” he said, even though Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have continued to claim the preventing the Iranians from having a nuclear weapons program—which Tehran denies having and US intelligence assessments have shown does not exist in the manner that US officials describe it—is central to their war aims.
“I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us," Trump said in a social media post on Saturday, "but can’t imagine that it would be acceptable in that they have not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity and the World, over the last 47 years."
Despite some reporting examining what's purportedly in the Iranian proposal, the exact details of the 14-point plan remain murky or contentious, depending on who you ask. Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, gave his assessment of the current situation on Sunday by saying:
Overall, the Iranians appear to be pursuing a grand bargain—without labeling it as such. This is not merely a proposal aimed at securing a ceasefire, or even a formal end to the current conflict, but rather an attempt to resolve the broader US-Iran antagonism that has persisted for the past 47 years. Implicit in this approach is an expectation that both sides would also restrain their respective regional partners and proxies (Israel, Hezbollah, etc.). In many respects, framing the proposal in this way may align more effectively with Trump’s instincts and psychology.
Meanwhile, a poll out Friday showed that 61% of Americans believe Trump's launching of the war was a mistake, and an even higher number (66%) disapprove of how he's handling the conflict. The same ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll also showed that Trump is now facing the lowest approval ratings of his presidency.
Speaking with Al-Jazeera over the weekend, Parsi explained that Trump's maximalist demands, including the blockade that it has tried to impose on Iran near the Strait of Hormuz, have made negotiations much more difficult:
Trump had time on his side during the ceasefire - until he imposed the blockade per the recommendation of FDD, Israel, and Lindsey Graham. Though the blockade is hurting Iran, it has ended up hurting Trump more, with oil prices now exceeding where they were even during the war… pic.twitter.com/wNSbvjtwSz
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) May 3, 2026
Over the weekend, archival footage from the 1990s shared online by journalist Séamus Malekafzali showed former Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Hossein Salami, who was killed by US-Israeli forces last year, talking to the IRGC's staff college about the country's strategy of "asymmetric warfare" if and when it ever faced an opponent that was perceived to have military superiority over it.
Fascinating footage released by the IRGC of a class at the org's staff college in the 90s, where future IRGC leader Hossein Salami teaches a course on asymmetric warfare, teaching officers how to drag out a war with the US by driving up economic costs and political turmoil. pic.twitter.com/et5ZVFIEMi
— Séamus Malekafzali (@Seamus_Malek) May 2, 2026
"The chance of conflict with American forces is very possible," Salami says in the video, according to the English subtitles provided, but the "possibility of victory really exists" if Iranians are able to move the conflict toward "the area of our capabilities into the area of America's weaknesses."
That strategy, as Malekafzali paraphrases it, is "to drag out a war with the US by driving up economic costs and political turmoil," thereby draining the US and sapping its power by inflicting economic pain and political pressure.
As many foreign policy observers have pointed out since Trump launched the war, the strategy of Iran to inflict pain on US allies in the region and economic pain at a global level—such as has been achieved by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz—is very much what Salami describes.
As geopolitical analyst Misbah Qasemi explained, Salami's point was basically this: "Don't match their strength (air power, technology). Attack their weaknesses (economic endurance, political will, domestic opinion). Drag them into your terrain—maritime, cyber, proxy networks—where their advantages neutralize themselves."
This point was made explicitly by Harrison Mann, a fellow with the advocacy group Win Without War, during a Sunday appearance on CNN, where he explained how this plays out in practical terms.
Told @brikeilarcnn: The "good news" is Iran won't become another quagmire because, unlike other countries the US has picked on in the region, Iran can actually inflict pain back on the US. In this case via economic warfare, which is not sustainable for Trump in the long run. pic.twitter.com/lwySB2BLca
— Harrison Mann (@Harrison_J_Mann) May 3, 2026
"Iran can actually inflict pain back on the US," said Mann. "In this case, via economic warfare, which is not sustainable for Trump in the long run."
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Trump Rebuked for Bypassing Congress With $8.6 Billion Weapons Sale to Israel and Gulf Allies
"The vaults are open and the arms trade is thriving before the war and after it," said one Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
May 03, 2026
As the US voting public continues to express its discontent over the disastrous war of choice against Iran that US President Donald Trump launched just over two months ago, fresh criticism followed after weekend reporting revealed the administration skirted congressional review to approve an $8.6 billion weapons deal with the United Arab Emirates and other allies in the Middle East.
Announced Friday night quietly by the US State Department, as the New York Times reports, the "sales would entail the transfer of rockets to Israel, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates and air-defense equipment to Qatar and Kuwait."
According to the Times:
Under the terms of the deal with Qatar, the Gulf country would pay more than $4 billion for American-made Patriot missile interceptors — global stockpiles of which have dwindled during the war with Iran.
Israel, the Emirates and Qatar would receive an Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, which fires laser-guided rockets. Kuwait also purchased an advanced aerial defense system for about $2.5 billion.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio expedited the deals under an emergency provision allowing the “immediate sale” of the weapons, the State Department said, bypassing standard congressional review and prompting criticism from Democratic lawmakers. This is the third time the second Trump administration has invoked an emergency authorization during the Iran war to bypass Congress on arms sales.
"No comment," said Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in an eye-rolling response to the news on social media.
After a commenter suggested that "America opened the door to war for [the countries taking part in the sale] so they would open their treasuries and the Israeli-American arms trade would boom after a slump," ElBaradei seemed to agree.
"The vaults are open, and the arms trade is thriving before the war and after it," he said.
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch and now a visiting professor at Princeton University, said: "Trump is bypassing Congress to fast-track arms sales to the United Arab Emirates, apparently without receiving any promise that the UAE would stop arming the genocidal Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan."
The RSF has been accused of atrocities in the ongoing Sudanese civil war, and the backing it has received from the US, with the UAE as its closely allied proxy, has been the source of outrage and criticism.
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