SEDRO WOOLLEY, WA -- Upwards of 65 people gathered today as Secretary Zinke visited Washington. With signs opposing Zinke’s monuments mistakes, offshore drilling proposals, park fee hikes, oil and gas leases, and his general disregard for our public lands, the message of opposition to the Secretary’s sell out was clear.
In response Alex Craven, Washington Organizer for Sierra Club’s Our Wild America campaign issued the following statement.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In a rush to avoid another government shutdown, members of Congress have proposed an omnibus deal that fortunately falls short of Trump’s outrageous requests to fully fund his wall, but still includes $1.6 billion for border walls along the U.S.- Mexico border. A significant portion of the funding is designated for 33 miles of new barriers that can be built as levee-walls or existing “bollard fence.
Utahns to oppose oil and gas leasing on iconic public lands.
Interior Secretary Zinke was on Capitol Hill again today testifying before the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee defending the proposed budget for the Department of the Interior. Sec. Zinke’s answers to Congressional questions largely mirrored those he gave earlier in the week when he blamed the elderly, disabled, veterans, and children for failing to pay for the National Park maintenance backlog, changed his story on opening the country’s coasts to offshore drilling, lectured members he disagreed with, and made clear nothing will be allowed to get in the way of the Trump administration’s vision for the country’s public lands - fossil fuel profits above all else.
Today Ryan Zinke’s Department of the Interior is wrapping up oil and gas leasing on public lands near the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument. Though the administration walked back the initial leasing proposal, which also included areas near Yellowstone National Park, today’s leases remain a threat to protected public lands and big game herds in an area prized for its elk.
Today, the Department of the Interior announced plans to speed up efforts to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The effort would give the area over to the oil industry, ignoring the place’s importance to the Gwich’in Nation, the permanence of drilling damage to one of the country’s last wild places, and the irreversible climate impacts in a state already warming at twice the rate of the rest of the country.
Today, in his remarks at an energy conference in Houston, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke made his preference for supporting the oil and gas industry over protecting our public lands and waters clear.
Yesterday, the Department of the Interior announced the cancellation of an oil and gas lease sale near Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a UNESCO Heritage Site in northern New Mexico. The controversial leases would have auctioned off an additional 4,434 acres in the Greater Chaco region for industrialized fracking, exposing local communities to increased pollution and threatening ancient ruins considered sacred by Indigenous Nations.
Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a proposal to gut a key safeguard that would limit methane pollution from oil and gas drilling operations. This is the first major air rule proposal to come out of the Trump administration.
Represented by Trustees for Alaska, Sierra Club and other conservation groups today challenged Interior Secretary Zinke’s recent approval of a land exchange to facilitate road construction through wilderness lands in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Zinke’s approval ignores deep flaws in the road building plan, including its exorbitant cost, high winter use risks, and detrimental impacts on the wildlife of the refuge and the Alaska Native subsistence it supports.
Advocates plan for huge anti-border wall event in Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge.
The House Natural Resources Committee today will hold a hearing on Rep. John Curtis’ H.R. 4532 “Shash Jaa National Monument and Indian Creek National Monument Act.” The bill would not only codify President Trump’s illegal cuts to Bears Ears National Monument but also delegate management of the monument to local officials and tribal representatives hand-picked by the Utah delegation, foregoing input from Tribal governments. Management plans laid out in the bill exclude three of the five tribes that advocated for Bears Ears protection.