Washington, D.C., -- Today, on the Day of Remembrance for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Sierra Club is joining the Native-Led movement for justice and endorsing Savanna’s Act.
Savanna’s Act is legislation introduced by Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). The legislation is designed to improve coordination and data collection among tribal, local, state and federal law enforcement in cases involving missing and murdered Native women.
Hudson, WI-- Today, at a hearing about the Trump administration’s move to remove gray wolves in the Lower 48 states from federal Endangered Species Act protections, several conservation and community organizations spoke out against the proposal. The groups emphasized the dangers of removing federal protections for the gray wolf-- including delisting prematurely and pulling resources away from full recovery efforts.
Today, Colorado lawmakers approved legislation that would reauthorize and modernize the way the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) oversees our utilities.
The Sierra Club and Chesapeake Climate Action Network to host a telepresser with energy experts, advocates, and officials on the states, cities, and utilities looking to transition to clean energy.
At today’s shareholder meeting for Consumers Energy, advocates from across the state raised serious concerns about the utilities plans for the J.H. Campbell Coal Plant in West Olive. Addressing Consumers CEO Patti Poppe directly the group delivered petitions with 1274 signatures from 353 different cities, all calling for a total transition from coal to clean energy by 2030, with targets for Units 1 and 2 in 2023 and 3 in 2030. The financial burden of the plant and its impacts on the health of Michigan families have encouraged Consumers to commit to stop burning coal by 2040 but petition signers and speakers at the meeting found this commitment underwhelming.
RICHMOND, VA--Today, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam signed the state budget with two environmentally harmful budget items. These items target interstate climate compacts, including the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), and the Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI). One item would prohibit the state from becoming a member of RGGI, a regional carbon pollution reduction program, pulling up short the state’s work to act on climate.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Energy and Natural Resources Committee Member Senator Maria Cantwell and House Natural Resources Committee Member Representative Ruben Gallego today introduced the Roadless Area Conservation Act. The bill would permanently codify the Roadless Rule and strengthen protections for 58.5 million acres of pristine National Forest System lands across 39 states from logging and road building. Despite the Roadless Rule’s many successes and the millions of taxpayer dollars it saves, there have been multiple Congressional attempts to strip Roadless Rule protections from millions of acres of public lands. This effort by Representative Gallego and Senator Cantwell will ensure pristine National Forests for generations to come.
Today, David Bernhardt’s Department of the Interior released its final plan to roll back safety standards for offshore drilling. The blowout preventer rule was put in place by the Obama administration in response to the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 people and spilled millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- On the heels of his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Mueller report on the Trump Administration’s attempts to obstruct justice, today Attorney General William Barr declined to show up for the House Judiciary Committee hearing. In yesterday’s Senate hearing, Barr acknowledged that he had barely read the report before releasing his summary. Report author, Robert Mueller, in a letter to Barr, took issue with Barr’s summary stating that Barr’s summary misreported the findings and confused the nation.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, the House of Representatives -- led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot Engel, Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Frank Pallone and Select Committee Chair Kathy Castor -- passed H.R. 9, the Climate Action Now Act. This is the first piece of climate legislation the House has passed in nearly 10 years, and the bill passed with bipartisan support.