• Land

CA Federal Court Invalidates Trump Rollback Allowing Methane Pollution on Federal Lands

• drilling
• environment
• methane
• NEPA
• oil and gas
• rollback
• science

A federal court in California on Wednesday tossed out the Trump Administration’s rollback of an Obama administration rule that limited wasteful venting, flaring, and leaking of gas from drilling operations on federal and tribal lands. The Judge re-instated the prior Obama Administration rule beginning in 90 days.

Why This Matters:  Once again, the Trump Administration’s flagrant disregard for democratic principles of government and the rule of law came back to bite them.

• Politics

Lawmakers Attach Environmental Provisions to “Must-Pass” DoD Bill

• #ForeverChemicals
• Department of Defense
• DOD
• drilling
• Florida
• leasing
• offshore oil and gas
• PFAS
• PFOA

The annual bill authorizing all activities and purchases by the Defense Department is a popular “vehicle” to advance environmental provisions on banning and cleaning up “PFAS” and “PFOA” toxic “forever chemicals” that have contaminated water all across the country, particularly on military bases.

Why This Matters:  These issues are not new, nor is using this DoD legislation to advance important DoD-related environmental objectives.

• Energy

Oil and Gas Lease Sales Go On Even Though There Are Few Takers and Lots of Litigation

• drilling
• Gulf of Mexico
• oil and gas

Between coronavirus economic meltdown and the excess oil supply thanks to the Russia and Saudi Arabia price war, bidding on the latest oil and gas leases for sale in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday was lower than any sale since 1993 for the highly productive central Gulf, according to the Associated Press.

Why This Matters: Cheap sales like this are good for the industry but they are selling our national shared assets for pennies on the dollar.

• Energy

Trump Administration Overrules Engineers on Drilling Safety In Rule Rollbacks

• Deep Water Horizon
• drilling
• oil and gas
• oil spill
• safety rules

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that at the direction of the Trump Administration it purged from the administrative record the written objections of its own engineers to the loosening of certain safety rules and procedures governing offshore drilling equipment.   The Journal found that internal deliberations with experts on the staff in which the experts expressed their concern about the safety of the looser rules are not reflected in the final decision memos issued by agency political appointees with close ties to the oil and gas industry.

• Land

Trump Administration Takes Aim at the Bureau of Land Management

• Bureau of Land Management
• drilling
• mining
• Monuments
• oil and gas

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is a small federal agency but it manages 250 million acres of land around the country, much of it in the West, and recently the Trump Administration announced that it wants to move most of its employees from Washington, D.C. to Colorado and other Western states as part of […]

• Land

Trump Administration Full Speed Ahead on Drilling and Mining In Alaska

• ANWR
• drilling
• mining
• Native Alaskan Tribes
• Pebble Mine

The Trump Administration in recent days has moved to quickly walk back protections for pristine areas of Alaska, advancing projects to develop the Pebble Mine that threatens Bristol Bay and its billion-dollar salmon fishery and also oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) over the strenuous objections of Alaska native tribes and their corporations, local communities, fishers, tourism businesses, and environmental groups.