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environment
'One-Way Ticket to Extinction': Trump Admin Again Guts Endangered Species Act
“In the midst of an extinction crisis," said one advocate, "the Trump administration is gutting protections to benefit industry interests."
Jul 18, 2026
“Yet again, the Trump administration has sold out our endangered wildlife to the highest bidder,” said one biodiversity advocate after the US Department of Interior, in a Friday news dump, issued two new policy changes that would weaken the Endangered Species Act and make it easier for corporate polluters to prioritize their own bottom lines over habitat protection.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) rescinded a policy that has been known as the "blanket rule" since 1975, which has given threatened species the same protections from illegal killing, trapping, harassment, and other forms of "take" under the ESA, as species that are officially designated as endangered.
The rollback would apply to species that have been newly declared as threatened, including the Florida manatee, the Pygmy rabbit, the Aztec Gilia, and Clover's Cactus—which could now go for years without protections despite their habitat loss and declining populations.
“Today’s decision represents a profound failure by Interior Secretary [Doug] Burgum and his department, and it amounts to an utter abdication of the federal government’s responsibility to protect America’s wildlife," said Sara Amundson, president of the Humane World Action Fund. "The department’s role is to faithfully implement—and certainly not to dismantle—the Endangered Species Act.”
The other policy change will require the FWS to consider the economic impact on various industries of designating areas as "critical" habitats in order to protect threatened and endangered species. The agency has previously had discretion over whether to consider economics when making habitat protection decisions.
Under President Donald Trump's new rule, said the Center for Biological Diversity, the FWS will be forced "to accept at face value claims by corporations and landowners of economic impacts from designating critical habitat, which could greatly limit the amount and quality of habitat protected for imperiled wildlife."
“Trump is bending over backward for corporate polluters by ripping away the blanket that protects so many struggling wildlife species as well as the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the natural places where we seek peace of mind."
"The way this is written, a landowner could falsely claim they planned to build the next Disneyland on their property, so designating critical habitat would supposedly cost them tens of millions of dollars,” said Noah Greenwald, CBD's endangered species co-director. “This rule is clearly intended to prevent the protection of the wild places that endangered animals and plants need to survive. It’s a despicable move that cheapens the value of our most imperiled wildlife so corporations can make more money. Anyone can make outrageous claims about how much their property is worth, but that shouldn’t be taken as gospel.”
Advocacy groups said both policy changes amounted to giveaways to the logging, mining, drilling, and cattle ranching industries. The latter industry has long lobbied against land being designated as a critical habitat for the ‘I‘iwi bird in Hawaii, Clay Samford, an attorney with the environmental legal group Earthjustice, told The Washington Post.
“It’s part of this administration’s push to reduce protections for public lands and wildlife that are enjoyed by all Americans, in favor of narrow business interests,” Samford told the newspaper.
A senior attorney for the group, Elizabeth Forsyth, said in a statement that "the Trump administration is turning the law on its head by letting extractive industries dictate where critical habitat can be destroyed."
"This prioritization of industry interests over science is fundamentally at odds with the clear purpose of the Endangered Species Act," said Forsyth. "We won’t let this dangerous giveaway go unchallenged.”
There is currently a backlog of more than 500 species awaiting consideration for listing as threatened or endangered, and the rule changes, along with the Trump administration's 18% reduction in the FWS workforce, are expected to leave imperiled species waiting even longer for protections.
“In the midst of an extinction crisis, with hundreds of species like the Florida manatee and the wolverine desperately needing stronger protections for their habitats, the Trump administration is gutting protections to benefit industry interests," said Ryan Shannon, a senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife. "Where we see our nation's irreplaceable wildlife, they see dollar signs. But our federal lands and waters, and the species they support, belong to all Americans, not to the logging, drilling, and mining industries that oppose all limits on maximizing their private profits.”
In a statement, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum asserted that the ESA has long been "weaponized to stop almost any new project in America, driving up costs for families, weakening our competitiveness, and undermining our national security,” continued Secretary Burgum.
He added that the endangered species list has "fallen short," with 97% of listed species remaining designated as endangered, and called for "species recovery and delisting."
But Defenders of Wildlife noted that the ESA "has succeeded in preventing extinction for 99% of listed species."
"Public support for protecting our native wildlife remains overwhelmingly high, with 84% of voters supporting the ESA, according to nationwide polling conducted by Defenders of Wildlife," said the group.
The rules announced on Friday came days after the Interior Department proposed a new rule under which management of threatened grizzly bears would be transferred from the federal government to the states, where Republican leaders have pushed to end protections for the species.
The administration also exempted oil and gas companies from having to protect endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico, and earlier this month changed the regulatory interpretation of the word "harm" in the ESA.
“These rules are a one-way ticket to extinction for our most imperiled animals and plants, from monarch butterflies to giraffes to alligator snapping turtles,” said Greenwald. “Trump is bending over backward for corporate polluters by ripping away the blanket that protects so many struggling wildlife species as well as the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the natural places where we seek peace of mind. This is the last thing we need in the middle of an extinction crisis, and we’ll fight it with everything we’ve got.”
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Don't Pull the Trigger: Say, 'No!' to New Plutonium Pits
The rush to increase production at 80 pits per year by 2030 unnecessarily increases the risk to workers and sidelines necessary environmental cleanup at the sites that already have ongoing release of radioactive waste into the air, water, and soil from legacy activities.
Jul 15, 2026
Plutonium pits are the radioactive core “trigger” of every US nuclear weapon. On detonation, the plutonium sets off a nuclear chain reaction initiating a nuclear explosion. The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, plutonium pit production Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, or PEIS, public comment period ends this Friday, July 16. Our input regarding this major component of today’s nuclear arms race is critical.
Paradoxically, on that same day, 81 years prior in 1945, the nuclear arms race began when the United States bombed New Mexico with the Trinity test. The PEIS released in April this year provides an incomplete and non-comprehensive environmental review of this accelerated race to develop new plutonium pits by 2030. The justification put forth stems from a Cold War mentality of Congress from 2014 requiring the United States to develop the capacity to produce 80 plutonium pits per year by 2030, subsequently bolstered by the 2018 Trump administration's Nuclear Posture Review requiring the US to produce 80 pits per year by 2030; 30 at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and 50 at the Savannah River Site.
As background, the majority of current plutonium pits completed production at the contaminated Rocky Flats plant outside of Boulder, Colorado by 1989. Therefore most plutonium pits are roughly 30-40 years old. Currently there are over 15,000 plutonium pits in reserve at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, and over 5,000 which are suitable for use in strategic reserve. These large grapefruit size pits have at their core the incredibly hazardous radionuclide plutonium 239, which has a half life of 24,000 years.
Concerns over the aging of the current stockpile have been the impetus for building new pits. That concern was largely put to rest with the congressionally mandated 2006 JASON study, which confirmed that plutonium pits would last at least 100 years, and a subsequent 2012 Lawrence Livermore National Lab study found “...no unexpected aging issues are appearing in plutonium pits artificially aged to 150 years of age…” and they “...performed as designed.” This scientific evidence deemed as inconvenient was ignored. A subsequent new JASON Study was completed in 2025, and the NNSA has refused to release the results despite congressional demands and watchdog agency lawsuits, presumably due to the inconvenient results threatening their multibillion dollar windfall.
Historically the only thing that can be guaranteed in this proposed increased plutonium pit production plan is that it will be significantly delayed and far over budget.
As noted, this current race to rapidly expand pit production will occur at the existing, and already contaminated, sites at Savannah River in South Carolina, and the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico. It’s as though these communities are expendable.
The current draft PEIS only gives lip service to addressing the environmental impacts, failing to adequately take into account the dangers posed by the production of these pits to surrounding communities. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, while the PEIS “clearly highlights an increased risk of radiation in the environment and across communities near facilities and workers it dismisses them as negligible continuing the most harmful and risky option of continued multi-site operations…. with only passing acknowledgement of the increased impacts at other sites, including nationwide transportation and impending waste management bottlenecks.”
According to a peer reviewed study published last week in the journal Science and Global Security, the Department of Energy has underestimated the potential deadly consequences if plutonium were to escape the Los Alamos National Laboratory. In the most serious case, if more than one kilogram of plutonium was to escape, the town of Los Alamos could become unlivable, and radioactive particles could spread across state lines. As many as 3,200 people could eventually get cancer with an estimated 1,000 deaths. Under certain circumstances, particles could travel as far north as Central Colorado and as far south as Southern New Mexico.
The draft PEIS fails to address the “no action“ option of not producing plutonium pits, thus dismissing it outright, presuming that production moving forward is a foregone conclusion. The rush to increase production at 80 pits per year by 2030 unnecessarily increases the risk to workers and sidelines necessary environmental cleanup at the sites that already have ongoing release of radioactive waste into the air, water, and soil from legacy activities on site. In addition, most reviews have concluded that this deadline is not realistic.
In addition, the proposed production will add fuel to the current ongoing arms race and proliferation disregarding the purported mission of the NNSA to “promote international nuclear safety and non-proliferation, and reduce global danger from weapons of mass destruction.” This will further erode confidence in the sincerity of the United States and its legal obligation under Article VI of the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, NPT, to work in good faith with other nations to abolish nuclear weapons.
Historically the only thing that can be guaranteed in this proposed increased plutonium pit production plan is that it will be significantly delayed and far over budget.
Imagine the international capital that could be gained by placing the entire plan on hold. Our national security would not be compromised. And there would be massive financial savings to be realized.
We must demand a more complete and transparent PEIS that addresses the entire environmental, economic, and health impacts to the communities directly at risk, as well as our entire nation and world. Absent that, we are not dealing with science, but rather opinion, conjecture, and fearmongering. Use your voice today by submitting your comments via email to PitPEIS@nnsa.doe.gov, being sure to reference Doc: DOE/EIS-0573.
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Trump Interior Department Is 'Trying to Make It Easier to Kill Imperiled Grizzly Bears'
"Grizzlies shouldn’t be killed at the whim of the livestock industry while it exploits our public lands for its own personal profit."
Jul 15, 2026
Conservationists warned on Tuesday that a new proposal by President Donald Trump's Interior Department would permit more killing of grizzly bears, which are a threatened species in the lower 48 states of the US.
The Interior Department's proposed rule would transfer management of grizzly bears from the federal government to states where Republican leaders have sought to strip the species of protections. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced the new proposal—with little specific detail—alongside Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, Idaho Gov. Brad Little, and Republican members of Congress.
Jenny Harbine, managing attorney for the Northern Rockies office at Earthjustice, said it is "extremely concerning that the Trump administration is seeking to hand over more management of the species to hostile Northern Rockies states."
"While we need to see the details of this proposal, it could put grizzly bears at greater risk at a time of record mortality for the species," said Harbine. "Anti-science political maneuvers should not be allowed to thwart grizzly bear recovery. If this proposal will further harm the species, we are prepared to take the administration to court."
Andrea Zaccardi of the Center for Biological Diversity said that with its new proposal, "the Trump administration is trying to make it easier to kill imperiled grizzly bears."
"Grizzlies shouldn’t be killed at the whim of the livestock industry while it exploits our public lands for its own personal profit," said Zaccardi. "The science is clear that grizzlies need full federal protection to recover, not a rule that will lead to more grizzly bear mortality. We’ll be reviewing the rule and considering next steps.”
Fewer than 2,000 individual grizzly bears remain in isolated populations in the lower 48 states.
The Interior Department said its new proposal wouldn't alter the bear's listing status under the Endangered Species Act, which the Trump administration is trying to weaken. Opponents of the new proposal cautioned that giving more management to GOP-controlled states could be disastrous for the species, rejecting Republican officials' claim that the bears have sufficiently recovered.
"This is a decision being made for political reasons, it is not based on science, in the best interest of the survival of the species, or in compliance with the requirements of the Endangered Species Act,” Greg LeDonne, Idaho director of Western Watersheds Project, said in a statement.
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'At the Behest of Polluting Corporations,' Trump Guts Two National Monuments
"Today’s proclamations are a slap to the face of public lands visitors across the country, as well as the local communities and tribes that have worked for years to protect these special places."
Jul 14, 2026
US President Donald Trump on Monday signed proclamations dramatically shrinking the size of two national monuments in Utah, eliminating roughly 3 million acres of protections for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante and potentially opening the beloved, wildlife-rich areas to industry exploitation.
Trump's proclamations, issued at the urging of Utah Republicans including Sen. Mike Lee, aim to reduce Bears Ears to just under 121,100 acres (down from nearly 1.4 million) and Grand Staircase-Escalante to 181,541 acres (down from 1.87 million). The president declared in his orders—which opponents say are unlawful—that the areas he's stripping of their monument designation contain "several resources that are vital to energy and resource independence," including silver, copper, uranium, and zinc.
The orders were met with immediate outrage from tribes, Democratic lawmakers, and conservationists. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement that the president has "illegally opened up two of the most extraordinary landscapes in America at the behest of polluting corporations who seek to ravage them for short-term profits."
"Trump has been selling out our public lands and waters since the day he took office," said Huffman, pointing to previous attacks on the monuments during the president's first White House term. "Trump tried this once before. We fought him then, and we are ready to fight him now, because no president should have the power to give away what belongs to the American people, including future generations. Keep public lands in public hands.”
Scott Braden, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said his organization "will challenge this unlawful decision in federal court" and expressed confidence that Trump's "reckless and unlawful acts will be rejected."
“Today’s action makes it clear that Utah is the epicenter of Republican efforts to dismantle and obliterate America’s system of public lands," said Braden. "President Trump’s outrageous attack on Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments was taken at the urging of Utah politicians—Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis, Gov. Spencer Cox, and the others—who championed this action. These two landscapes deserve to be protected for current and future generations of Utahns and Americans, not opened to exploitation."
During a signing ceremony on Monday, flanked by Utah Republicans, Trump characterized his scaling back of monument protections as an effort to give land "back to the people of Utah." The president falsely claimed that people could "virtually not even walk on" the lands under the protections he targeted.
"You can’t go hunting. You can’t go fishing," the president said, incorrectly. "You can’t do anything."
Trump's proclamations cite authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which empowers the president to "reserve parcels of land as a part of the national monuments." But opponents of Trump's assault on the two Utah national monuments noted that the law does not explicitly authorize the president to scale back protections implemented by previous administrations.
In 2021, then-President Joe Biden restored protections to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante after Trump's first attempt to gut them in 2017. Trump's new assault on the two national monuments goes much further than the previous one. (The far-right Project 2025 agenda, which Trump has repeatedly tried to disavow despite his ties to its architects, called for the downsizing of national monuments and repeal of the Antiquities Act.)
"President Trump’s attack on Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments is just as illegal today as it was in 2017,” Heidi McIntosh, managing attorney for Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office, said in a statement on Monday. "The Antiquities Act authorizes presidents to designate national monuments, not to destroy them. Today’s proclamations are a slap to the face of public lands visitors across the country, as well as the local communities and tribes that have worked for years to protect these special places. Earthjustice and our partners are prepared to vigorously defend the monuments once again."
Autumn Gillard, coordinator for the Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition, said Monday that "our tribes were not informed of or asked about this decision, and that’s unacceptable."
“Today’s action is a direct strike against the federal government’s duty to consult with tribes," said Gillard. "It also profoundly disrespects our intergenerational traditional knowledge by destroying a framework for tribal co-stewardship over our ancestral lands in which we invested years of effort. Today’s action cannot stand."
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Alarm Grows Over Vought Plan to Give Trump Cronies Control of Federal Grant Money
"The test will be a simple one: Are you sufficiently loyal to the president? If the answer is no, it will result in the denial of lifesaving disaster relief, funding for research into cures, the closure of Head Start offices, and more."
Jun 13, 2026
A Trump White House plan to give political appointees more power over federal grant money has sparked alarm among scientists, public health organizations, environmental groups, and others who fear that the proposal amounts to an attempt to subordinate critical funds to the whims of the president and his far-right allies.
More than 300 organizations signed a joint letter on Friday calling on White House budget director Russell Vought, the proposed rule's architect, to extend the public comment period that's set to end on July 13, warning that the "scope and impact of [the Office of Management and Budget's] rule is vast."
"The rule will impact the entirety of government grant-making across the United States," the groups warned. "OMB itself says the revisions suggested would relate to over $179 billion of funds to small entities."
Politico, which exclusively obtained the letter, noted that the "proposed rule has already garnered over 15,000 public comments, with many expressing alarm that the changes could undermine research across fields."
Under Vought's rule, federal agencies would be required to perform "pre-issuance reviews" of federal grants—funds appropriated by Congress—to ensure their distribution is consistent with "applicable law, federal agency priorities, and the national interest."
The rule lays out a number of standards that political appointees at federal agencies must screen for when deciding whether an organization can receive federal grant dollars. For instance, the rule would prohibit the distribution of federal grants to organizations that "promote anti-American values" or support "ideologies that deny the biological reality of sex or the sex binary in humans."
The New York Times reported that the consequences of Vought's rule "could fall hardest on health and science, a field in which [President Donald Trump] has pursued some of the steepest cuts in his second term."
"In exchange for federal assistance, researchers would face limits on the subjects that they can explore, the foreign labs with which they may collaborate and even the conferences at which they can appear," the Times noted. "Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, the chief executive of the American Public Health Association, a professional organization and advocacy group, said the policy could 'devastate innovation, science, and research' in the United States."
"This is an executive power grab that would hand presidential political appointees unchecked control over more than a trillion dollars that Congress appropriated in the interests of all Americans."
Earlier this month, Lawyers for Good Government and the Environmental Protection Network said that "if finalized, the rule would put senior political appointees in charge of approving and canceling individual grants, while stripping recipients of due process rights" while attaching "ideological conditions to nearly every federal dollar, raising First Amendment and equal-protection concerns."
The two organizations published a fact sheet warning that the proposed rule has the potential to halt billions of dollars in funding that communities across the US depend on for "health, public education, scientific research, public safety, and economic development projects."
“This is an executive power grab that would hand presidential political appointees unchecked control over more than a trillion dollars that Congress appropriated in the interests of all Americans,” said Jillian Blanchard, senior vice president for climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government. “Conditioning funding for critical programs on ideology and viewpoint discrimination, while erasing basic due-process protections, violates freedoms of speech, equal protection, and eviscerates Congress’ power of the purse.”
Democratic lawmakers have also sounded the alarm about Vought's proposal. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said Thursday that she has given her Republican colleagues two opportunities to denounce Vought's rule—and they declined both times.
"Vought continues to attempt to steal from communities across the country. Now, he is trying to set a new political test on grants for a wide swath of the federal government," said DeLauro. "The test will be a simple one: Are you sufficiently loyal to the president? If the answer is no, it will result in the denial of lifesaving disaster relief, funding for research into cures, the closure of Head Start offices, and more. If you are not loyal enough, if you speak out against this administration, the president and his cronies will take away resources Congress provided."
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Thousands March in Albania After PM Says Pristine Land 'Belongs' to Kushner-Backed Group
"One week later, we are still here, stronger than yesterday," said one group opposing a proposed luxury resort project supported by Jared Kushner.
Jun 08, 2026
Albanians took to the streets in droves for the eighth consecutive day on Sunday to protest a proposed $1.6 billion luxury resort complex backed by US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, one of several investors in the project, which opponents say is both corrupt and disastrous for wetlands and wildlife.
"One week later, we are still here, stronger than yesterday," said the Albanian Ornithological Society, a leading critic of the proposed development. "Millions around the world are united in one voice for nature, for justice, and for the protection of what belongs to everyone, standing for every protected area in Albania."
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has vocally defended the project amid mounting public backlash, saying in a recent interview that the land marked for development "belongs to the investors," not the Albanian people.
Rama also criticized the thousands of people who have turned out to protest the luxury hotel project as well as international media coverage of the demonstrations, saying that "there is no chance" that "the projects in Albania will be defined by street protests."
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama admits Jared Kushner’s new private island will be exclusively for the elite.
He says the land no longer belongs to the Albanian people and is now under the control of Jared Kushner and his investors.
"The aim is to build the most exclusive."… pic.twitter.com/95IM0YX6xI
— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) June 7, 2026
Demonstrators, many raising pink flamingo cutouts to decry the project's expected impacts on the vulnerable bird and other wildlife, have demanded cancellation of the resort project and Rama's resignation, accusing him of steamrolling environmental concerns to bolster the country's tourism industry and curry favor with the Trump administration. Kushner currently works for the administration as a "special peace envoy."
"We are stronger than your bulldozers," chanted demonstrators over the weekend.
Thousands of Albanians took to the streets of Tirana in the largest protest this week against a plan by a company linked to Trump's son-in-law to build a luxury resort in an environmentally sensitive area pic.twitter.com/aJaKz3ju0A
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 7, 2026
As The New York Times reported last year, Rama heads the government committee that gave "Kushner and his business partners the right to move ahead with accelerated negotiations to build the luxury resort on a 111-acre section of the 2.2-square-mile island of Sazan that will be connected by ferry to the mainland."
"Mr. Kushner’s Affinity Partners, a private equity company backed with about $4.6 billion in money mostly from Saudi Arabia and other Middle East sovereign wealth funds, is pursuing the Albania project along with Asher Abehsera, a real estate executive that Mr. Kushner has previously teamed up with to build projects in Brooklyn, New York," the Times added.
Lea Ypi, an Albanian academic, wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian on Monday that "Albanians know that real-estate speculation without state support means ordinary citizens will struggle to buy a flat or pay the rent."
"They know that luxury tourism means holidays in your own country become a privilege for the few," Ypi added. "With no unions to speak of and a labor movement that only appears in communist-era footage of May Day parades, work conditions are so exploitative that only those from countries even more desperate are willing to take the jobs that arise."
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'Gift to Corporate Polluters': Republicans Advance Massive Assault on Wildlife and EPA
“This morally bankrupt bill will only lead to dirtier air, more toxic water, and countless species shoved over the extinction cliff," said one wildlife defender.
Jun 04, 2026
Congressional Republicans on Wednesday approved an appropriations bill containing massive cuts to Environmental Protection Agency funding, more than 20 riders undermining the Endangered Species Act, and other provisions harmful to the environment and wildlife—while boosting mining on federal lands.
Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee advanced the fiscal year 2027 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies funding bill, which slashes total expenditures for the EPA by 20% and reduces its enforcement budget by $169 million—or nearly half, compared to last year’s levels. GOP lawmakers claim the dramatic reduction in EPA funding "safeguards American taxpayer dollars."
The bill also cuts the US Fish and Wildlife Service's listing budget nearly in half, "effectively dismantling the program in charge of determining which animals and plants deserve protection under the Endangered Species Act," according to a letter sent by a coalition of 80 conservation groups to House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).
"The legislation also contains a total of at least 21 anti-wildlife poison pill riders—the largest number of policy riders that has ever been included in the base bill in the history of the Endangered Species Act," the groups' letter notes. "These riders would cause irreparable harm by undoing decades of progress to stabilize and recover some of our most iconic species."
The riders include measures blocking or weakening protections for imperiled species including the greater sage-grouse, lesser prairie chicken, northern long-eared bat, northern spotted owl, Canada lynx, and seven species of freshwater mussels.
Provisions in the bill also prohibit the federal government from banning or restricting lead in ammunition or fishing gear, block the reintroduction of grizzly bears in the North Cascades and Bitterroot ecosystems, and revive Florida’s illegal wetland destruction permitting program that harms species, including the Florida panther and frosted flatwoods salamander.
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), one of the groups leading the letter to House Appropriations Committee leaders, noted Thursday that the legislation also codifies climate denialism into law "by exempting federal land management agencies from updating their plans when new information shows endangered species are being harmed or killed on public lands."
Meanwhile, the bill contains provisions intended to expand mining on federal lands, including reinstating certain mineral leases and limiting some land withdrawals.
"Instead of lowering the cost of living and confronting the climate crisis, House Republicans are raising utility bills and energy prices," the office of House Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee Ranking Member Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) said in a statement Wednesday.
"The legislation takes an aggressive anti-environment, pro-corporate polluter stance with cuts to the EPA and policy provisions that endanger public health and fail to confront the climate crisis," Pingree's office added. "The bill also guts resources for the arts and museums while failing to prevent the administration from misusing funds to build President [Donald] Trump’s Garden of Heroes and Triumphal Arch."
The Republicans’ spending bill for Interior + Environment is a disaster:🚨 20% cut to EPA🚨 Free passes to polluters🚨 Rollbacks on PFAS regulations🚨 Millions for Trump’s vanity projectsThey care more about the president’s ego than the health of people and our planet.We're in for a FIGHT.
[image or embed]
— Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (@pingree.house.gov) June 3, 2026 at 9:32 AM
Pingree's office said the bill:
- Raises utility bills by shifting costs onto state and local governments and making electricity more expensive through funding cuts and policies that would cripple renewable energy development;
- Worsens the climate crisis by cutting critical EPA work;
- Slashes funding for national parks, cutting facility operations and maintenance by $163 million;
- Guts resources for museums, arts, and culture;
- Favors polluters over public health through harmful policies that undermine EPA’s ability to regulate pollution; and
- Exploits public lands and accelerates ecosystem decline by allowing harmful and dirty mining activities and by removing Endangered Species Act protections for numerous species.
Democrats offered amendments to the bill during full committee markup, including measures to remove all the poison pills from the legislation, promote renewable energy, ban coastal oil drilling in California and Florida, provide funding for environmental justice initiatives, and prevent the construction of Trump vanity projects including his White House ballroom and bunker. Republicans rejected all of the amendments.
"This bill is a gift to corporate polluters, who would poison our communities in pursuit of even greater profits," DeLauro said in a statement Wednesday. "It saddles cities, towns, and working families with higher utility bills. And it allows President Trump to continue raiding public funds to pay for his own vanity projects."
"At a time when the American people are struggling to make ends meet, this bill makes the problem worse," she added. "It does nothing to bring down costs, while allowing the billionaires and big corporations, who have profited by polluting our communities, to get even richer. Meanwhile, the air we breathe and the water we drink gets less and less safe.”
CBD director of government affairs Stephanie Kurose said Thursday that "it's a disgrace that House Republicans want to dismantle decades of environmental progress and hand polluters unprecedented power over the health of our communities, public lands, and wildlife."
“This morally bankrupt bill will only lead to dirtier air, more toxic water, and countless species shoved over the extinction cliff," Kurose added. "Future generations will pay the price for this staggering level of political irresponsibility.”
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The Hawk at the Edge of Doing and Being
I suspect this hawk has never once felt the nag of the question, “What can I do?” Not about the climate crisis. Perhaps not about anything. What to do is something other animals seem to know innately and intimately, or perhaps don't need to know at all.
May 05, 2026
I live in the very heart of Atlanta, Georgia, affectionately called the "city in a forest." From my desk, where I work most days, I look out onto a stand of trees. Right at canopy height, it is the perfect view for getting distracted, especially by our resident red-tailed hawk, who is strikingly visible in the loose thatching of bare winter limbs.
Sudden squirrel scatter, and she alights on the branch of a maple tree to scan for potential prey. Her fleet perch and keen watch, her grandeur of feather and hunt—it breaks through the primacy of my screen and shakes me from the fathomless digital world. Interruption gladly received.
Each time the hawk stops through these trees, I am struck by the sudden proximity of a taloned huntress to me, encased in my condo-version of captivity. More than once, I have grabbed my phone to quickly frame the hawk and catch ill-focused evidence that I too am alert and alive. Enraptured by a raptor, I have "Slacked" the flattened scene to my colleagues: “Afternoon visitor!” With a feather and a heart emoji afterword. (As if icons in miniature could limn her.)
But I am struck by another proximity, too, between what the hawk does and who the hawk seems to be. Her doingness and her beingness are so close as to become one.
What might open up for us if we shift the question ever so slightly—from What can I do? to Who can I be? Or, Who am I already?
I suspect this hawk has never once felt the nag of the question, “What can I do?” Not about the climate crisis. Perhaps not about anything. What to do is something other animals seem to know innately and intimately, or perhaps don't need to know at all.
Evolution has made things more complicated for us Homo sapiens, who ponder and puzzle. As essayist and author Margaret Renkl writes, "Every living thing—every bird and mammal and reptile and amphibian, every tree and shrub and flower and moss—is pursuing its own vital purpose, a purpose that sets my human concerns in a larger context." As I watch the hawk's wings lift and lower and propel her back into the air, I marvel and muse whether life itself might offer another way in.
What might open up for us if we shift the question ever so slightly—from What can I do? to Who can I be? Or, Who am I already?
The hawk, like all of us existing on this planet, is an inheritor of a 3.8-billion-year history: From single-celled organisms to plants and vertebrates, life has continued to move forward toward more life, overcoming unthinkable odds. Weighty and unwavering and in so many ways impenetrable—this dynamic defines Earth as a living planet. When we think about a hive of honeybees gathering their ingredients from flowers, or black corals siphoning plankton over centuries, or the sudden emergence of mushrooms from a shrouded fungal network, we can see this dynamic in action. Even kudzu offers testimony with its rampant return, however unwelcome, each spring.
Who can we be? One thing we already are: an expression of Earth's life force, right here, right now, made possible by a series of miracles that have blossomed over eons. This is true simply by virtue of breathing.
Life force unfurls through each of us in such beautifully different ways. We explore the unknown and document our discoveries. We design new things and give them form. We expose what's ruptured and source the means to mend it. We reflect, wonder, and imagine. We craft stories and art and shows. We make ritual. We convene people and foster conversation and collaboration. We care for one another. We strategize, organize, and orchestrate. We engineer and implement. We manage the details. We show up, stand up, and speak up. We share wisdom and tell jokes. We cook and sing and clean and plant and build and nap. And all of that is just the briefest inventory of human beings' doings.
There are things we do that are so wholly connected with who we are—that spring up from within us in such an organic way—that the space between our doing and our being shrinks or even vanishes. In those moments, our small expression of the vast life force we've inherited and embody is especially effervescent. We may find ourselves buzzing, flowing, or sensing a particular warmth. We may be especially porous and focused both.
It is a radical act to believe in our ability to thrive, both individually and as a planet, by being who we are.
I imagine this is how the hawk might feel as she swoops into the circle of life. It's how I wish many more of us to feel as we take wing to heal the climate crisis.
In Climate Wayfinding, we think of the ways we each express life force as our unique talents, gifts, or superpowers—all of which are so very needed in this era of change. Two lenses help illuminate them: authentic power and deep joy.
Authentic power is something that rises up from within us—internal and genuine, not gained at others' expense or expended upon them. It's a feeling of ability, capacity, strength, weight, energy, vigor. It aligns what swells within us with how we move in the world.
Deep joy is a feeling of great pleasure, happiness, delight, exhilaration, radiance, bliss. It, too, rises from within and spills out, intermingling with the world around us. It is often the emotional glow of meaning or connection. Joy may also feel out of place in the face of the climate crisis. Who are we to taste joy when so much is hurting? But joy is all the more necessary, and all the more holy, in difficult times.
As Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in Braiding Sweetgrass: "Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the Earth gives me daily and I must return the gift."
In my own experience, moving at the nexus of authentic power and deep joy might be our closest approximation to life force itself. When I have strayed far into zones of not-power and not-joy—most often for employment or another hard-tugging should—I have found myself in struggle, disconnection, and even depression. Stubborn is the soul, intent on a space where it belongs.
It is a radical act to believe in our ability to thrive, both individually and as a planet, by being who we are. I mean radical in the fullest sense: from the root, fundamental, and far-reaching. A person anchored and aglow—that is the kind of revolutionary that's called for in this time.
Looking inward to shape our outward contributions—this, I think, is a form of courage. When we refuse to lose touch with our sources of authentic power and deep joy, and when we dare to center them somehow in our lives, we reach toward calling. Whether loudly or in a whisper, these things summon us, insisting that our lives can be alive—sprouting and blooming, swooping and flying high—and that we can be part of making it so.
Just now, the red-tailed hawk draws my eye. It's a beautiful, bewitching thing to behold a being in the fullness of herself. But I realize, watching her in motion, that I am rapt by more than the solitary bird. At the edges of the self, there is a zone, almost an aura, of arising. We find there, at the periphery, a space populated by all that is emergent with, and only with, the world around us.
For the hawk, that emergent edge exists in the remarkable everyday interplay of hunger and wing and wind. And perhaps it is so for all of us, along our own edges, as we muster skill and strength for a planet in want, in wish.
Perhaps you, too, can feel the vibration at the eager verge of doingness and beingness and the wide, long, insistent breath of life.
This piece was adapted from Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home by Katharine K. Wilkinson (Andrews McMeel, 2026). Used with permission of the publisher. Do not republish.
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Clearing the Ground Beneath Our Feet: Why Demining Is the Ultimate Environmental Act
This Earth Month, as we reflect on the power we hold, we should recognize that some of the most profound acts of environmental stewardship begin not with planting or preservation, but with making the ground safe enough to stand on.
Apr 29, 2026
During the 1960s, America was deep in the throes of the US War in Vietnam. In addition to student protests of the war, there were also “teach-ins”—gatherings that questioned not just the war, but the systems behind it, on campuses all across the country. This anti-war movement inspired the start of another; the fight for environmental protection, giving birth to Earth Month in 1970.
Earth Month is not only a moment of reflection about sustainability and the protection of the environment; it is a test of what we choose to do with what we know. This year’s theme, “Our Power, Our Planet,” asks us to consider where power truly lives. In Laos and Ukraine, the answer is clear: It lives in the land and its people.
Land feeds families and shapes culture. It determines whether a child grows up with stability or scarcity. In Laos, more than 70% of the population depends on agriculture. Golden green glutinous, or “sticky,” rice fields stretch across the country, joined by cassava, coffee, and vegetables that sustain both households and local markets. In Ukraine, fertile black soil has long made the country a cornerstone of the global food system, feeding more than 400 million people through exports of wheat, corn, barley, and sunflower seed.
In both countries, the land carries a hidden burden.
Safe land means farmers can plant without fear, invest in their futures, and pass on their livelihoods to the next generation.
Between 1964 and 1973, the US dropped at least 2.5 million tons of ordnance on Laos, with nearly a third failing to detonate. Today, unexploded ordnance litters every province, leaving a quarter of villages affected. Fertile ground is laced with danger.
Ukraine is now becoming all too familiar with this reality. Over four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion, over a quarter of its land is estimated to be contaminated with explosive remnants of war. Just like in Laos, their legacy will endure for generations.
For farmers, this threat is daily life.
In Ukraine, images circulate of tractors moving steadily through fields under gray skies, in rain, even under fire. There is a kind of grim humor in the idea that farmers will cultivate their land no matter the obstacle. Beneath the dark humor of those internet memes is a gritty determination to survive.
In Laos, that risk has been a constant for decades.
Mae Tao Seesom was just in her early 20s during the war in Laos. She remembers having to hide in caves to avoid danger. Unable to farm their land, she and fellow villagers had to harvest what grew in the forest.
Decades after the war, in 2019, Mae Tao Seesom was cooking for her grandchildren when a cluster bomb exploded under her fire. Luckily, no one was injured. This time.
In Ukraine, Oksana Lukiyanchuk’s newly inherited farm is only 35 kilometers from the front lines; she moved to her own farm in 2021 to generate a livelihood for her young family and a legacy to pass on to her newborn son. Only months later, Russia invaded.
The war has drained her workforce; she now works her land with just one hired hand. Under constant threat of drones, Oksana continues to build her business; as a fifth-generation farmer, her ties to the soil here keep her from leaving. This sense of belonging emanates widely among Ukrainian farmers, and is the reason many continue to risk everything to grow on these front lines.
What lies beneath the soil does more than threaten lives; it constrains entire economies.
In Laos, farmers often avoid deep plowing or expanding irrigation for fear of what they might uncover. The result is lower yields and lost potential. Infrastructure—from roads to schools to clinics—cannot move forward without clearance. Decades after the last bombs fell, vast areas of land remain unused.
Ukraine now stands at the beginning of a similar economic struggle. Agriculture is one of its largest sectors, with consequences far beyond its borders. Smaller farms face labor shortages as workers are drawn into military service. Larger producers race to maintain supply chains under constant disruption.
Yet, this is not a story of helplessness. It is a story of leadership.
In Laos, unexploded ordnance clearance has become a national priority, embedded in its development strategy and backed by decades of commitment. Progress has been steady: Casualties have declined, and more land is made safe each year. National institutions, international organizations, and local communities work in concert, ensuring that clearance efforts reach those most in need.
In Ukraine, that same sense of urgency has taken root with remarkable speed. Organizations like Fondation Suisse de Déminage hire hundreds of explosive ordnance risk educators to meet farm staff where they are—at farmers markets, in schools, and on their land—to ensure everyone living in hazardous areas knows the threat of these weapons. As the country develops new landmine technology, this risk education saves lives now, and will remain necessary for decades on.
While the risks of demining are immediate, so are the returns.
Safe land means farmers can plant without fear, invest in their futures, and pass on their livelihoods to the next generation. It allows roads to be built, markets to grow, and communities to thrive. It restores not only productivity, but dignity.
This is why demining is not simply a humanitarian effort. It is one of the most direct and effective investments in development. It strengthens food systems, reduces poverty, and builds resilience all at once.
It is also achievable.
The experience of Laos shows that progress, while gradual, is real. With sustained commitment, improved technology, and strong partnerships, contamination can be reduced, lives can be saved, and land can be returned to those who depend on it.
Ukraine’s future is not yet written. But the path ahead is clearer because others have walked it before.
If land is life, then clearing land is renewal.
This Earth Month, as we reflect on the power we hold, we should recognize that some of the most profound acts of environmental stewardship begin not with planting or preservation, but with making the ground safe enough to stand on.
In Laos and Ukraine, that work is already underway—unceasingly, by the people, and with extraordinary courage.
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Green Groups Sue Trump to Stop 'Exceptionally Risky' Deep-Water Drilling Project in Gulf of Mexico
"Ultra-deep-water drilling is ultradangerous, full stop," said an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.
Apr 20, 2026
Determined to prevent a "sequel" to the worst oil spill in US history, BP's deadly Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, six environmental protection groups on Monday sued the Trump administration over what they said was its illegal approval of the British fossil fuel giant's $5 billion plan to drill in the body of water's lowest depths off the coast of Louisiana.
BP has boasted that its planned Kaskida oil field is a "world-class project that reflects decades of technological innovation," but environmental legal firm Earthjustice argued that the company has failed to prove its has the "experience, expertise, and certified equipment to conduct safe drilling under extreme conditions" in waters deeper than 5,600 feet, where opponents of the plan say extreme pressure and temperatures will make a blowout and oil spill more likely than they'd be in a typical drilling project.
A "loss of well control" was blamed for the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill that killed 11 people, harmed and killed more than 100,000 birds and marine animals as well as untold numbers of fish, and devastated local economies—and that type of accident is 6-7 times more likely in an ultra-deep drilling project like Kaskida, according to Earthjustice.
The organization wrote in a regulatory filing last year when it was trying to block the project that "deep-water and ultra-deep-water oil spills and accidents are also much more difficult to respond to and contain.”
"BP did not show in its proposals that it will have the necessary containment capabilities in case the company needs to stop a blown-out well from spilling 4.5 million barrels of oil or more across the Gulf."
The group is representing Healthy Gulf, Turtle Island Restoration Network, Habitat Recovery Project, Sierra Club, and Center for Biological Diversity in the lawsuit, which argues that President Donald Trump's Interior Department adopted in its environmental analysis of Kaskida a severe underestimation—by about half a million barrels of oil—of what a worst-case scenario oil spill would look like.
"BP did not show in its proposals that it will have the necessary containment capabilities in case the company needs to stop a blown-out well from spilling 4.5 million barrels of oil or more across the Gulf," said Earthjustice.
Rachel Mathews, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said it was "appalling that the Trump administration has authorized this deep-water drilling project without having information critical to preventing harm to marine life."
“This will put Rice’s whales, sea turtles, and other Gulf wildlife at terrible risk," said Mathews. "Ultra-deep-water drilling is ultradangerous, full stop.”
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's (BOEM) approval of the Kaskida project was preceded by several industry-friendly actions by the Trump administration, including a meeting last month of the federal Endangered Species Committee, which voted to exempt fossil fuel companies from following policies intended to protect endangered species in the Gulf. Advocates argued that the decision was made illegally because the panel is required to meet publicly.
The administration has also proposed weakening "well control" rules for offshore drilling operations, and the White House is consolidating the BOEM and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement—two agencies that were intentionally separated following the Deepwater Horizon disaster after an investigative commission found that conflicts of interest were created when they acted as one regulatory agency.
“Kaskida is emblematic of a new era in offshore oil extraction: corporate hoarding of risky, ultra-deep water leases in an attempt to monopolize the future of oil production, with little to no oversight from the Trump administration. We, as citizens of the Gulf South, are not standing for it,” said Martha Collins, executive director of Healthy Gulf. “BP has shown how they handle oil spills on this anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster—their risky drilling and inexperience at this great depth will ensure their continued legacy of the Gulf never being the same again.”
Despite the fact that the Trump administration has taken numerous actions to ramp up oil and gas production—as the US already produces record amounts of fossil fuels—those measures are doing little to reduce oil prices, noted Earthjustice.
“Offshore drilling is one of the riskiest kinds of oil extraction, but the Trump administration is ignoring the law to allow Big Oil CEOs to endanger coastal communities for the sake of corporate profit,” said Devorah Ancel, senior attorney at Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program. “This permit would allow BP to develop multiple ultra-deep high-pressure wells, which is already exceptionally risky, and with BP’s track record in the Gulf, coastal ecosystems face extraordinary danger. We’re suing the Trump administration to ensure the coastal communities that would suffer the consequences of BP’s actions get their day in court.”
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