Protecting America’s Public Lands and Waters from Drilling

Photo by Loren Blackford
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of America's last truly wild places and must be preserved. | Photo by Loren Blackford

Public lands and waters should never be threatened by oil and gas drilling. We work to protect these special places from legislative assaults and federal regulatory rollbacks that threaten to open them up to exploitation by the fossil fuel industry.

Press Releases

December 20, 2019

Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), along with Representatives Steven Horsford (D-Nev.-04), Dina Titus (D-Nev.-01), Mark Amodei (R-Nev.-02) and Susie Lee (D-Nev.-03) today announced the Desert National Wildlife Refuge and Nevada Test and Training Range Withdrawal and Management Act. The legislation protects 1.3 million acres of Wilderness and makes progress toward embeddingTribal considerations into land management. However, the legislation does allow for limited military expansion to address national safety and security needs.

December 19, 2019

WASHINGTON, D.C.-- Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) today introduced the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act. The bill will make permanent a ban on new uranium mining on about 1 million acres of public land adjacent to, and hydrologically and ecologically connected to, the Grand Canyon.

December 12, 2019

The Trump administration took the final step today to break a five-year moratorium on leasing public land in California for oil drilling and fracking, issuing a decision that will allow more than 1 million acres to be put on the auction block.

December 9, 2019

Las Vegas, NV-- Late last week, the Nevada Bureau of Land Management released a letter stating that the agency will reduce the amount of public lands in its December oil and gas leasing auction-- from a total of 468,815 acres to 192,178 acres. The reduction comes after pressure from a coalition of outdoors and conservation organizations, elected officials and locals.

December 6, 2019

Salt Lake City, Utah -- Today, Utah youth gathered at the Capitol and in Ogden to demand strong and immediate action on climate as a part of the Fridays For Future Global Climate Strike. Organizers estimate more than two-hundred participated in the two actions throughout the state to call for bold protection of lands as a solution for mitigating climate change. 

November 20, 2019

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, the House Natural Resources Committee took up legislation to designate new wilderness in California, Washington, and Colorado. Included in the bills passed out of committee are the Central Coast Heritage Protection Act (H.R. 2199); San Gabriel Mountains Foothills and Rivers Protection Act (H.R. 2215); Northwest California Wilderness, Recreation, and Working Forests Act (H.R. 2250); Wild Olympics Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (H.R. 2642); the Colorado Wilderness Act of 2019 (H.R. 2546); and the Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act (H.R. 1708).

November 19, 2019

WASHINGTON,D.C. -- Today the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed the Restore Our Parks Act (S. 500), the Land and Water Conservation Fund Permanent Funding Act (S. 1081) and the Conservation of America’s Shoreline Terrain and Aquatic Life (COASTAL) Act out of committee.

November 13, 2019

Denver, CO-- Today, the Bureau of Land Management announced it will defer all acres up for auction in its December oil and gas lease sale in Colorado due to a court-ordered preliminary injunction. On Monday, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from easing safeguards on sage grouse habitat land-- blocking hundreds of thousands of acres from fossil fuel development in Western states. 

November 13, 2019

Las Vegas, NV-- Yesterday, the Sierra Club joined with members of the Western Shoshone Nation and community members to rally and demand the Trump administration’s Bureau of Land Management halt their oil and gas lease sales-- one that took place yesterday and upcoming sales through the year-- that target hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands in the state for drilling. The November sale originally included over 500,000 acres of land for sale, but the agency downsized the average significantly due to political pressure.

November 12, 2019

In an interview with the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, Acting Bureau of Land Management Director William Pendley made clear his ambitions to remove the “acting” from his title and assume the role of BLM director.