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center for biological diversity
Lawsuit Aims to Halt Trump Giveaway of Wildlife Refuge to Appease Elon Musk's SpaceX
"We’re not letting Trump and his political cronies lock the American people out of Texas’ cherished public lands just to give Elon Musk another payday.”
Jun 10, 2026
Several environmental organizations are suing the US Fish and Wildlife Service to stop the agency from handing over hundreds of acres of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge to Elon Musk's company SpaceX.
The complaint—which was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Save RGV, the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, and South Texas Environmental Justice Network—alleges that the government is violating federal law that requires any transfers of wildlife refuge lands to private ownership to result in net conservation benefits.
Instead, the complaint says the proposed deal with SpaceX would lead to a loss of more 715 acres of wildlife refuge land in exchange for 683 acres of private land.
Bekah Hinojosa, co-founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, expressed particular concerns about SpaceX building facilities on the land given that the company's rockets regularly cause environmental damage by exploding.
"Elon Musk has built his explosive SpaceX facility in the middle of a major wildlife corridor home to endangered and threatened species like ocelots and wetlands," said Hinojosa. "There was never supposed to be space rockets blowing up here."
Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, accused President Donald Trump's administration of handing over vital public lands to "the world’s richest man, who could trash them while playing with his exploding rockets."
"We’re not letting Trump and his political cronies lock the American people out of Texas’ cherished public lands," added Jordahl, "just to give Elon Musk another payday.”
Mary Angela Branch, board member at Save RGV, said that SpaceX's presence in the area has already been an "unmitigated disaster" for the local environment, and she warned the land transfer plan would "permanently sever the very heart of the wildlife corridor established by Congress in 1979."
"This corridor, running along the Rio Grande... is prime wildlife habitat, and nothing gained in this ‘swap’ will be equal," Branch emphasized. "This will be a huge loss."
In addition to opposition from the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the proposed transfer to SpaceX has drawn significant opposition from some local residents. According to a report published last week by the San Antonio Express-News, more than 3,400 letters have been submitted to the US Fish and Wildlife Service expressing opposition to the transfer.
Musk, who on Wednesday was accused by politicians in the UK of stoking racial hatred that led to violent pogroms in the city of Belfast, is aiming to become the world's first trillionaire ty making SpaceX a publicly traded company this month.
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Trump Admin Waives Environmental Laws for Border Barrier Construction in National Park
“These horrific plans are an affront to the millions of Americans who treasure Big Bend,” said one conservationist. “Politicians who’ve never set foot here are signing a death warrant for this wild and beautiful place.”
Jun 08, 2026
The Trump administration's revised waiver of dozens of environmental laws to expedite the construction of border roads and barriers through Big Bend National Park in southern Texas is set to take effect Tuesday, over the objection of Indigenous, migrant rights, and environmental groups.
Last month, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initially published its determination that waivers from laws—including the National Park Service Organic Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act—are needed "to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads in the vicinity of the international land border in the state of Texas."
However, DHS said the project area description in its original notice of determination was "incorrect" and issued a revised notice with the correct geographical information, set to be published on Tuesday.
“The absolute disdain this administration has for our national parks is disgraceful, and now they’re targeting Texas’ most beloved national park,” Center for Biological Diversity national public lands advocate Laiken Jordahl said in a statement Monday.
“The only people benefiting from this destruction are the billionaire contractors set to pad their pockets while paving over our natural heritage and permanently locking a great American river behind hideous steel barriers," Jordahl added. "We won’t stop fighting for this crown-jewel national park and the Rio Grande.”
As CBD noted, DHS in May awarded $1.7 billion in contracts that include work on a "border wall through Big Bend.” Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem personally approved two contracts for SLSCO Ltd., a Texas-based company also under contract for the infamous Alligator Alcatraz camp for immigrants in Florida. The company is a major Republican donor and is accused in court of trafficking people and weapons across the border.
Last week, DHS awarded another $2.6 billion contract—the biggest border deal to date—for the Lower Canyons stretch of the portion of the Rio Grande that has "Wild and Scenic River" protections, and is downstream from the national park.
While running for president in 2016 and during his first term, Trump repeatedly vowed that Mexico would pay for the wall, for which US taxpayers and private donors have footed the bill. Only a small fraction of the wall has been completed.
While much of the border barrier consists of a 30-foot reinforced steel-bollard wall, the 118-mile portion of the Rio Grande running through Big Bend National Park currently has mostly natural barriers like the rivers, deep riparian canyons, mountains, other steep terrain, and the unforgiving Chihuahuan Desert.
Planning documents and maps from earlier this year suggested substantial border wall construction in the broader Big Bend region. Amid public outcry and opposition from politicians from across the political spectrum, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published a map showing no planned 30-foot wall inside Big Bend National Park. However, the map shows miles of planned barriers meant to stop vehicles but not people on foot, new patrol roads cut through the park, and more surveillance technology.
"The move marks the first time in American history that the federal government has cast aside a broad slate of environmental laws... in a national park," CBD said Monday.
Considerable ambiguity remains over the precise nature of the border barrier through Big Bend National Park. In April, CBD filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act "to obtain public records about construction plans in the area."
Indigenous peoples and their advocates have also opposed expanding the border barrier and have criticized DHS for waiving laws, including the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and the Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act, to enable the administration's plans.
David Keller, a noted archaeologist in the region, warned in a February interview with Big Bend Reporter that what he called “the military industrialization of one of the last, great, unspoiled places remaining in the United States of America" threatens millennia of Indigenous history stored in the soil and etched on rock faces.
The Trump administration's work on other portions of the border wall has blasted and bulldozed sacred Indigenous sites.
Late last month, seven former Big Bend National Park superintendents wrote to DHS Secretary Marywayne Mullin, urging him to reject the waiver of federal laws. CBD and over 130 advocacy groups and business2es have also called on Congress to block federal funding for any further border wall construction in the region, including Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park.
"If a border wall—or other unnecessary and highly destructive border infrastructure—is built inside Big Bend National Park, it would be the most egregious assault on the integrity of the entire National Park System since the construction of a dam in the Hetchy Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park more than a century ago," the former superintendents asserted.
Texas Public Radio reported Sunday that construction on the border wall in the Big Bend area is set to begin "within weeks."
"Shipments of what appear to be steel bollards have begun arriving in the region, and at least one 'man camp' housing facility for workers is being developed," the outlet said.
As the No Big Bend Wall Coalition notes, while CBP's Big Bend Sector represents 26.5% of the US-Mexico border, only about 1.3% of all border apprehensions happened there last year, belying Trump administration claims of "high illegal activity" in the area.
"Historically, the Big Bend Sector is the quietest part of the entire US border," the coalition said. "While federal rhetoric has described a 'national emergency' to justify waiving environmental protections and seizing private land, their own CBP data tells a different story."
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Citing 'Irreversible Harm,' 100+ Groups Urge Congress to Reject Rushed Data Center Approvals
"Congress must not let Big Tech block oversight and hide data centers’ real harms from the public, including their immense energy and water use, dangerous pollution, and rising local costs," said one campaigner.
Apr 29, 2026
Nearly 120 civil society groups on Wednesday urged US lawmakers to reject Republican-led efforts to fast-track approval of artificial intelligence and conventional data centers, including by slipping provisions for these facilities into permitting reform legislation or "must-pass" bills.
Fossil fuel companies "are pushing to fast-track data center build-outs while ignoring the impacts on communities and the environment," the groups said in a letter to congressional leaders. "Proposals disguised as 'commonsense' reforms would weaken the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Endangered Species Act, while also stripping residents of their right to participate in decisions affecting their health, water, and air."
"Congress cannot allow these industries to externalize costs while claiming progress," the letter states. "Lawmakers must prioritize public health, environmental sustainability, and community resilience, and reject rollbacks that hand corporations unchecked control over land, energy, and local resources."
If Joni Mitchell's iconic "Big Yellow Taxi" was written today the lyrics would say, "they paved paradise and put up a data center."We'd like to preserve paradise. So, the Center and our allies just urged Congress to reject fast-tracking harmful data centers. More info: biodiv.us/4cHWF4g
— Center for Biological Diversity (@biologicaldiversity.org) April 29, 2026 at 11:23 AM
The groups further called on lawmakers to eschew inclusion of data center provisions in "must-pass" legislation such as appropriations bills, the National Defense Authorization Act, Water Resources Development Act, and Farm Bill.
“Our democratic process was sidelined when our most powerful leaders both elected and unelected championed a data center while community voices were shut out,” said LaTricea Adams, CEO and president of Young, Gifted & Green, a national civil and environmental justice group that signed the letter.
Young, Gifted & Green is one of the frontline groups fighting Colossus, an enormous Memphis data center operated by Elon Musk's xAI to train its Grok AI chatbot using over 100,000 Nvidia H100 graphics processing units. The NAACP and Southern Environmental Law Center are suing xAI for alleged violations of the Clean Air Act related to the massive facility.
“What happens in Memphis can happen in cities and states across the country," Adams said. "We need the US Congress to do its job now to preserve and protect our rights as constituents and fight for our democracy.”
The letter's signers include 350.org, the Center for Biological Diversity, CodePink, Food and Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace USA, Oil Change International, Third Act, Turtle Island Restoration Network, Waterkeeper Alliance, and more than 100 other organizations.
The groups' letter comes as more and more communities are successfully opposing the proliferation of data centers across the nation. In Maine, state lawmakers recently passed legislation that would have enacted the nation’s first statewide moratorium on AI data centers had Democratic Gov. Janet Mills not vetoed the move.
Developers want to build 51 data warehouses, each the size of a Walmart Supercenter, in a Pennsylvania town of just 7,000.And they are refusing to tell the community what technology firms will occupy the buildings.Is it any wonder why a nationwide backlash against AI data centers is brewing?
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— Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) April 27, 2026 at 9:58 AM
At the federal level, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) last month introduced a bill for a national moratorium on AI data centers “until strong national safeguards are in place to protect workers, consumers, and communities, defend privacy and civil rights, and ensure these technologies do not harm our environment.”
Center for Biological Diversity senior climate and energy policy specialist Camden Weber said in a statement Wednesday that "Congress must not let Big Tech block oversight and hide data centers’ real harms from the public, including their immense energy and water use, dangerous pollution, and rising local costs."
“Data center giants spend consumers’ money to gut regulations, buy up utilities, and avoid accountability, enriching billionaires while shifting risks to everyone else," Weber added. "Members of Congress are supposed to represent their communities, not strip the people who elected them of the power to protect themselves from these massive operations moving into their neighborhoods.”
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