WASHINGTON — The American Civil Liberties Union today announced that it will seek to expedite proceedings before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in order to restore a permanent block on border wall construction using unauthorized military funds. The announcement comes after the Supreme Court temporarily granted the administration’s request to unfreeze up to $2.5 billion in military funds for wall construction while the Ninth Circuit considers the merits of the government’s appeal.
Today, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a permit that the ACP needs to continue construction
Earlier today, Senators Leahy, Feinstein, Grassley, and Cornyn sent Andrew Wheeler and the EPA a letter on their dangerous changes to the FOIA process. Below is a quote from Sierra Club’s Legislative Director Melinda Pierce on the news:
SPRINGDALE, PA-- Today, the Sierra Club sent a “notice of intent to sue” letter to NRG Power Midwest alleging serious violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA) at the company’s Cheswick coal-fired power plant in Springdale. The plant has been discharging heated wastewater into the Allegheny River at temperatures over nine-times what is currently allowed--potentially affecting the waterway’s local ecosystem and killing aquatic species.
Advocates for a Cleaner Tacoma filed a lawsuit today challenging the Washington State Department of Ecology’s issuance of a key permit for Puget Sound Energy’s (PSE) proposed fracked gas facility in the Port of Tacoma. The Sierra Club is supporting the legal challenge to the project as an “interested party.”
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court today denied the government’s attempt to begin construction of President Trump’s border wall using funds unauthorized by Congress. The ruling upholds an earlier district court order that blocks the administration from building wall sections along the southern border in New Mexico and Arizona using illegally diverted military funds.
Conservation groups filed a federal lawsuit today challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ illegal approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline to be constructed through hundreds of rivers, streams, and wetlands without evaluating the project’s impacts as required by the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act. The groups also sent notices of their intent to sue President Donald Trump, the Army Corps, and the companies seeking to build Keystone XL and its power-line infrastructure over the project’s lethal threats to endangered species, including the whooping crane.
A federal court today permanently blocked the Trump administration from accessing $2.5 billion in military funds for the president’s border wall, ruling that the administration’s attempt to transfer funds for a border wall Congress denied is unlawful. Wall construction using the funds, which the administration announced it would divert under counterdrug authorities, was set to begin as soon as Monday.
The Trump administration released a resource management plan today that would expand federal fossil fuel development across a huge swath of southwestern Colorado, threatening a growing organic agriculture hub and undermining the state’s new climate law. The federal administration’s plans directly contradict Colorado’s new law calling for steep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, a 50 percent cut by 2030 and a 90 percent reduction by 2050.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, on the one-year anniversary of Justice Anthony Kennedy announcing his retirement, the Supreme Court ruled on cases involving the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census and partisan gerrymandering. The Court struck down the citizenship question, reasoning that the Trump Administration did not give adequate explanation for adding the question, but also ruled that partisan gerrymandering is beyond the reach of the federal courts.
Top Trump Air Pollution official Bill Wehrum's resignation comes in no small part due to the scrutiny his corruption and extremism received due to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
WASHINGTON, D.C. - A new proposed EPA FOIA rule, first reported in The Hill, will give untrained political appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority to make decisions about public information requests.