News
The Biden Administration formally announced the revocation of the rule finalized on January 7, 2021 that severely limited the scope of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) and exempted industry from punishment for causing deaths or harm to migratory birds. Begun as a treaty with Canada in 1916 and since codified into law, the MBTA originally protected migratory bird species from the feather trade.
A few miles from the border of Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge, which is home to several species of critically endangered birds, an unauthorized drone crashed into another part of the coastal marsh and provoked thousands of nesting Elegant terns to abandon more than 1,000 eggs, none of which are viable.
The Biden Administration announced the suspension of oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Trump Administration finalized these leases on January 19, 2021, the day before inauguration. The National Wildlife Refuge Association is thrilled with this decision: the Arctic Refuge is one of the largest tracts of untouched wilderness and most ecologically diverse areas in the United States and should not be destroyed in exchange for the pittance received from the January lease sale.
The proposed Super-Conducting Magnetic Levitation railway is a very bad idea for all of our natural resources. Instead of handing over the last remaining federally conserved land between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore to a private corporation, we should be focusing on restoring and building on our natural areas, which provide wildlife habitat, clean water and lands for hiking, hunting and wildlife watching.
Located in the northeast corner of Nevada, Ruby Lake NWR is an expansive marsh nestled in the High Desert, at the southern end of the Ruby Mountains. Today, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto introduced a bill that would protect the Ruby Mountains and Ruby Lake NWR from future oil and gas development. We applaud the Senator for her forethought and for the inclusion of the Ruby Lake NWR in this package.
Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) introduced a bill that would designate 1.3 million acres of wilderness in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge. Located just outside the city limits of Las Vegas, the Desert NWR protects 1.6 million acres of the largest contiguous Desert bighorn sheep habitat in the Lower 48. This refuge is also home to the threatened Desert tortoise.
Today, four conservation groups – the National Wildlife Refuge Association, Driftless Area Land Conservancy, Wisconsin Wildlife Federation and Defenders of Wildlife – filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin against the Rural Utilities Service for violating the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) by failing to sufficiently consider reasonable alternatives, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for violating the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act in approving the unneeded huge Cardinal-Hickory Creek high-voltage transmission line and 20-story high towers that will cut a wide swath through the protected Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, and the scenic Driftless Area’s vital natural resources.
This week, the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate voted in veto-proof numbers to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which protects the Desert National Wildlife Refuge in southern Nevada for the next 25 years. This bill is the result of several months of negotiations between the two chambers of Congress in conference, and keeps the previous military boundaries within the Desert NWR intact.
Today, the Bureau of Land Management stated that they are going to hold a lease sale for oil and gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on January 6, 2021. Ever since the creation of the Arctic Refuge 60 years ago, oil and gas companies have been lobbying for access to this protected land. This step to hold a lease sale is the formal opening of the Arctic Refuge for development for the first time in history.
Recent changes to the Clean Water Act regulations have resulted in a legal redefinition of wetlands that are under the jurisdiction of the United States. The new definition does not include seasonal wetland habitats which are the bulk of the wetland habitat in the proposed mining area. This now means that Twin Pines Minerals LLC no longer needs to obtain a Clean Water Act, Section 404 permit from the federal government and no further environmental analysis of the proposed mine will be required by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
