June, 29 2022, 11:41am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Melissa Hornbein, Western Environmental Law Center, hornbein@westernlaw.orgÂ
Lawsuit Challenges Biden's Resumption of Oil, Gas Leasing on Public Lands
Climate and conservation groups filed a lawsuit today challenging the Biden administration's resumption of oil and gas leasing on public lands, the first auction since the president paused leasing shortly after taking office.
WASHINGTON
Climate and conservation groups filed a lawsuit today challenging the Biden administration's resumption of oil and gas leasing on public lands, the first auction since the president paused leasing shortly after taking office.
The lawsuit challenges the Department of the Interior and U.S. Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) approval of today's oil and gas lease sales in Wyoming. These lease auctions will be immediately followed by sales in Montana, North Dakota, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Collectively, these sales will open more than 140,000 acres of public land to fossil-fuel production.
"Overwhelming scientific evidence shows us that burning fossil fuels from existing leases on federal lands is incompatible with a livable climate," said Melissa Hornbein, senior attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center. "In spite of this administration's climate commitments, the Department of Interior is choosing to resume oil and gas leasing. The very least the BLM could do is acknowledge the connected nature of these six lease sales and their collective impact on federal lands and the earth's climate. Its failure to do so is an attempt to water down the climate effects of the decision to continue leasing, and is a clear abdication of BLM's responsibilities under the National Environmental Policy Act."
The groups assert that BLM has violated environmental laws by continuing to authorize fossil fuel extraction on public lands. The challenged lease sales are expected to result in billions of dollars in social and environmental harm, including negative impacts on public health, air and water quality, and local wildlife,such as the embattled greater sage grouse and other endangered species.
The lawsuit cites a failure of the Interior Department and BLM to uphold their responsibility under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which requires Interior to prevent "permanent impairment" and "unnecessary or undue degradation" of public lands from oil and gas development. It also calls for BLM to prepare a comprehensive environmental impact statement. That should analyze the compatibility of the predicted increased greenhouse gas emissions with the urgent need to avoid the catastrophe of 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming, rather than in piecemeal analyses.
"We're out of time and our climate can't afford any new fossil fuel developments," said Taylor McKinnon with the Center for Biological Diversity. "By leasing more of our public lands to oil companies, President Biden is breaking campaign promises and falling dangerously short of the global leadership required to avoid catastrophic climate change."
"President Biden came into office promising bold action on climate. Moving forward with these lease sales flies in the face of science and any chance for us to meet our climate goals," Dan Ritzman, director of Sierra Club's Lands, Water, Wildlife campaign. "For the sake of our environment and our future, we must transition away from the toxic fossil fuel industry that prioritizes handouts to oil and gas companies over the interests of local communities, wildlife, and conservation efforts."
Several analyses show that already producing fossil fuel fields, if fully developed, will push warming past 1.5 degrees Celsius. Avoiding such warming requires ending new investment in fossil fuel projects and phasing out production to keep as much as 40% of already developed fields in the ground.
"While people are getting gouged at the pump by greedy oil and gas companies, the Biden administration is bending over backward to give more breaks to the industry and sell public lands for fracking," said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians. "This isn't just undermining our climate, it's undermining our nation's ability to transition away from costly fossil fuels and toward cleaner, more affordable energy."
Thousands of organizations and communities from across the U.S. have called on President Biden to halt federal fossil fuel expansion, to phase out production consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and develop new rules under long-ignored legal authorities to serve those goals.
"Continuing to sell public lands to oil companies for development flies in the face of the president's promises and climate science," said Derf Johnson, staff attorney for the Montana Environmental Information Center. "It's time to be brave and take bold action, rather than bowing to the demands of one of the most damaging and profitable industries on the planet."
"While the pain at the gas pump is real, selling more of our public lands to Big Oil will not lower prices, but will lock the U.S. into decades of GHG-spewing projects with costly and damaging, long-term climate and water impacts to our communities, economy, and environment," said Marc Yaggi, CEO of Waterkeeper Alliance. "To preserve any chance of mitigating the ongoing climate catastrophe, President Biden must honor his pledge to ban all new leasing of our public lands."
The administration's promised comprehensive climate review of the federal oil and gas programs under Executive Order 14008 culminated in a report released the day after Thanksgiving that barely mentioned climate, presumes more climate-incompatible oil and gas leasing, and suggests modest economic reforms proposed by the Government Accountability Office decades ago. .
Conservation groups earlier this month filed a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration's 3,525 drilling permit approvals in the Permian and Powder River basins. The Biden administration approved 34% more drilling during its first year than the Trump administration, according to federal data analyzed by the Center for Biological Diversity.
Climate pollution from federal fossil fuels is hastening the extinction crisis while impacting communities nationwide with extreme weather, wildfires, regional aridification and river drying, droughts, heat waves and rising seas. Warming and pollution from federal fossil fuel extraction harms everyone, and disproportionately harms Black, Brown and Indigenous communities, a fact the Biden administration has repeatedly acknowledged.
"The public is absorbing substantial economic and ecological costs from fossil-fuel-driven climate disruption, including massive fires, biodiversity loss, superstorms, and extended drought," said Erik Molvar, executive director of Western Watersheds Project. "Federal minerals belong to the public and should be managed in the public interest, which clearly dictates keeping federal fossil fuel deposits safely buried underground.
The June lease sales come amid record oil and gas industry profit-taking. The watchdog organization Accountable.US reported in February that Shell, Chevron, BP and Exxon made more than $75.5 billion in profits in 2021, some of their highest profits in the past decade. Major oil companies also reported billions in profits in the first quarter of 2022.
Contacts:
Melissa Hornbein, Western Environmental Law Center, 406-471-3173 hornbein@westernlaw.org
Natasha Leger, Citizens for a Healthy Community, 970-399-9700, natasha@chc4you.org
Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians, 303-437-7663, jnichols@wildearthguaridans.org
Medhini Kumar, Sierra Club, medhini.kumar@sierraclub.org
Erik Molvar, Western Watersheds Project, 307-399-7910, emolvar@westernwatersheds.org
Taylor McKinnon, Center for Biological Diversity, 801-300-2414 tmckinnon@biologicaldiversity.org
Lori Harrison, Waterkeeper Alliance, 703-216-8565, lharrison@waterkeeper.org
Derf Johnson, Montana Environmental Information Center, 406-581-4634, djohnson@meic.org
The Western Environmental Law Center uses the power of the law to safeguard the public lands, wildlife, and communities of the American West in the face of a changing climate. We envision a thriving, resilient West, abundant with protected public lands and wildlife, powered by clean energy, and defended by communities rooted in an ethic of conservation.
(541) 485-2471LATEST NEWS
Sanders' Bipartisan Bill to Combat US Primary Care Crisis Passes Key Senate Panel
The HELP Committee chair pledged to work with Senate leadership "in the coming weeks to move this bill forward and ensure that millions more Americans can get the healthcare they deserve."
Sep 21, 2023
U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Bernie Sanders celebrated on Thursday after the panel advanced his Bipartisan Primary Care and Health Workforce Act, teeing up a possible full-chamber vote on the bill.
"Everyone in America understands that our healthcare system is broken and getting worse," Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement. "Despite spending twice as much per capita as any other nation, millions of Americans are unable to access the primary care and dental care they desperately need and we have a massive shortage of doctors, nurses, dentists, and mental health professionals."
"With today's passage of bipartisan legislation in the Senate HELP Committee, we are beginning to address that crisis," added the senator, a longtime advocate of Medicare for All. "I'm pleased this legislation passed with a strong bipartisan 14-7 vote."
"I especially want to thank Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) for his hard work on this legislation," he said. "Together, we will work with Senate leadership in the coming weeks to move this bill forward and ensure that millions more Americans can get the healthcare they deserve."
The committee's decision to advance the healthcare bill—and three others, which were agreed to by voice votes—comes just a week after Sanders and Marshall, a physician, announced that they had reached a deal on the "historic" legislation.
The bill, which took months of work, "increases mandatory funding for Federally Qualified Community Health Centers from $4 billion a year to $5.8 billion a year for three years, which will enable more Americans to receive not only high-quality primary healthcare, but dental care, mental health counseling, and low-cost prescription drugs," Sanders told the committee on Thursday.
"What we have in front of us with your vote is the most significant piece of legislation in addressing the primary healthcare crisis in modern American history."
"In addition, this bill includes a one-time allocation of $3 billion to be used to establish dental operatories so that community health centers can expand their dental care capabilities," he continued. "This legislation will save substantial sums of money. Investing in primary healthcare will keep people healthier and out of hospitals; investing in community health centers will keep people out of emergency rooms, which cost about ten times more per visit than a community health center."
Dr. Kyu Rhee, president and CEO of the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), said last week that "health centers appreciate the strong leadership from Chairman Sanders and Sen. Roger Marshall."
"This bill lays out a vision that emphasizes the role of health centers and expands their reach beyond the 31.5 million existing patients," he pointed out. "The bill also encourages much-needed growth of the primary care workforce by investing in innovative health center-led career development programs."
Noting Thursday that Senate HELP Committee Ranking Member Bill Cassidy (R-La.) put forth over five dozen amendments, Sanders said: "Is this a perfect piece of legislation? No, I don't think so."
Yet, Sanders stressed, it also represents a remarkable opportunity.
"As every member of this committee knows, it is very difficult to get any substantive legislation passed in Congress today," he said. "Sen. Marshall and I and other senators have tried, and what we have in front of us with your vote is the most significant piece of legislation in addressing the primary healthcare crisis in modern American history."
The Senate panel's vote for the Bipartisan Primary Care and Health Workforce Act comes as House Republicans are self-destructing, pushing the United States toward a potential government shutdown in just over a week. Unless Congress acts to prevent a shutdown before the end of the month, all federal funding for health centers will expire.
NACHC's Rhee said Monday that "I am staying up at night worrying about the stability of our primary care workforce."
"This debate over health center funding comes as clinicians are considering what residency they should go on, what training program, or whether or not they should sign a contract at a community health center," he added. "That is why it makes sense to invest in health centers and in primary care development programs to grow the current workforce of 285,000 health center professionals."
Keep ReadingShow Less
As UAW Strikes at Big Three, Progressives Eye Next Potential Unionization Target: Tesla
"This strike could be a bellwether," said one professor. "It's a hot time in the labor movement."
Sep 21, 2023
As members of the United Auto Workers union strike for better pay and benefits at General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis plants, labor advocates and progressive politicians this week took aim at what could be the next big unionization target: Elon Musk's Tesla.
"There is a group of Tesla workers who are actively talking about forming a union and creating the best representation they can for themselves and their co-workers through collective bargaining," Mike Miller, director of UAW Region 6—which is made up of California and Nevada, where Tesla makes vehicles and batteries—toldThe New York Times on Thursday.
While Tesla—which is owned by the notoriously anti-union Elon Musk, the world's wealthiest person—may enjoy short-term advantages over the Big Three as production lines are idle in the Midwest, some observers say that the UAW strike could prove an inspiration and catalyst for Tesla workers seeking to unionize.
"This strike could be a bellwether," Villanova University professor Rick Eckstein told the Times. "It's a hot time in the labor movement."
In 2018, the UAW tried, and failed, to organize workers at Tesla's Fremont, California plant, which was previously a unionized GM-Toyota facility. Despite Musk's assertion on Twitter—which he later bought and renamed X—that there was "nothing stopping" workers at the plant from voting to unionize, UAW officials alleged the company was engaging in illegal union-busting activities, and the National Labor Relations Board agreed. The NLRB ordered Tesla to rehire a worker illegally fired for disparaging a non-union colleague and compelled Musk to delete his tweet. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently affirmed the NLRB's decision.
In February, Tesla terminated dozens of workers at its Buffalo, New York plant in what critics called an act of "retaliation" for their effort to unionize. The fired workers' case is currently before the NLRB.
"Such tactics are fully in line with the attitude of Musk himself, who has routinely made anti-union statements and publicly threatened to take away employees' stock options if they unionized," labor writer Hamilton Nolan wrote in an opinion piece published Thursday by The Guardian.
"Despite having a net worth of $270 billion, Musk does not believe that the workers who make his products should be able to get together and negotiate a fair contract for themselves," Nolan added. "He's greedy. He's ignorant. He's a crumb."
Some observers say autoworkers are paying close attention to the strikers' demands—and whether they win them.
New York Times auto industry reporter Jack Ewing wrote Thursday that "as representatives of the national union demand 40% wage increases from the Detroit automakers, along with significant gains in benefits, they are certainly thinking about the signal that any deal would send to nonunion workers at Tesla."
As Nolan put it: "The UAW knows damn well that Tesla workers need a union. But organizing an $800 billion company run by a union-buster with infinite money is not easy."
But, he asserted, "not even Musk can hide from the labor movement forever."
"It's been around a lot longer than he has," Nolan noted, adding wryly that "if he can't bear to have a free union election in his plant, I'm sure that we could arrange a cage match for him with an auto worker to settle this issue once and for all."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Total Sh*t Show': McCarthy Sends Lawmakers Home as GOP Pushes US Toward Shutdown
"Speaker McCarthy is wasting precious time catering to the hard, hard MAGA right," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Sep 21, 2023
"The House Republicans are a total shit show."
So said Congressman Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) Thursday afternoon, just over a week away from a potential U.S. government shutdown, as the fractured House Republican Conference once again proved incapable of passing anything resembling an appropriation.
After far-right Republicans blocked a defense spending bill for the second time this week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) opted to send lawmakers home with the warning that they may be called back for votes on Friday or over the weekend.
So far, the House has passed
only one of a dozen appropriations bills for fiscal year 2024, which begins October 1. The defense bill—which was also opposed by all Democrats due to spending levels and other provisions—would have made it two.
The latest failure of the Pentagon funding measure, described by some as " embarrassing" for the embattled speaker, comes after the House GOP kicked off the week with a continuing resolution (CR) to prevent a shutdown for 30 days that was "doomed to fail," not only due to MAGA Republicans but also because it would have imposed spending cuts that conflict with the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the debt ceiling deal McCarthy struck with President Joe Biden earlier this year.
As of late Wednesday, House GOP leadership reportedly planned to pass the defense bill then move to a new CR on Saturday. Now, according to multiple journalists on Capitol Hill, the plan is spend next week trying to pass the remaining FY24 appropriations bills—bills that, as CNN reporter Melanie Zanona highlighted, are dead on arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
In other words, as Punchbowl News' Jake Sherman noted, the House GOP is adopting the strategy of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)—one of the far-right lawmakers who in January forced 15 rounds of voting for McCarthy to become speaker. McCarthy secured the post by making concessions to Gaetz and others, including a rule change that allows a single member to initiate a vote to oust the speaker.
"An ominous case of déjà vu is playing out this week in the House of Representatives: A national crisis is around the corner, the solution demands bipartisanship, but Speaker McCarthy is wasting precious time catering to the hard, hard MAGA right," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday, recalling when the GOP almost forced an economically catastrophic debt default earlier this year.
"Instead of decreasing the chances of a shutdown, Speaker McCarthy is actually increasing it by wasting time on extremist proposals that everyone knows he knows cannot become law," Schumer charged. "If the speaker continues down on the path he's on, the odds of a shutdown sadly go up, and Americans will know that the responsibility of a shutdown will be on the Republicans' hands."
Schumer—who on Thursday evening took a procedural step toward passing a CR next week—urged the House to focus on funding bills that can pass with bipartisan support, a demand echoed by 144 House Democrats in a Thursday letter to McCarthy, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and appropriations panel leaders.
"Bogging down the appropriations process with controversial policy debates is contributing to another damaging political impasse," the Democrats wrote. "Given our country's many ongoing challenges and urgent needs, the House of Representatives must work cooperatively to complete the appropriations process in a timely manner. Clean funding bills—free of contentious poison pill riders—represent the best path forward as we work to fulfill our duty to the American people to keep the federal government running."
That followed a Wednesday letter in which 92 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) told McCarthy that "we stand ready to support a bipartisan funding vehicle free of poison pill policy riders that is consistent with the agreement you struck with President Biden and which was ratified by bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate."
"Republicans are deliberately forcing a government shutdown because they know that we the people won't stand for their cruel, pro-hunger, pro-eviction, anti-parent, anti-senior, anti-worker, anti-veteran plot to please their cable news culture warriors or pay for handouts to their billionaire friends," Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) said Wednesday during a CPC press conference. "Republicans know the American people see right through their... bullshit."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular
Independent, nonprofit journalism needs your help.
Please Pitch In
Today!
Today!