• Forests

Trump Administration Will Open Millions More Acres of Public Lands to Oil and Gas Drilling

• Bureau of Land Management
• drilling
• federal land
• Forest Service
• leasing
• oil and gas

The Trump Administration announced that it intends to open millions of acres of national forest land for oil and gas drilling, and they will not evaluate whether the areas being opened will cause any environmental impacts, nor will they give the public advance notice, The Hill reports.

Why This Matters:  The Trump team seems to be speeding up their desperate efforts to help fossil fuels as the first (and hopefully only) term nears an end.  There is no economic or national security rationale for this.  

• People

Trump Says “You’re Fired” to 1,100 Workers in Conservation Job Training Program

• Civilian Conservation Centers
• Department of Agriculture. RIF
• disadvantaged youth
• Forest Service
• job training
• New Deal

The Washington Post reported that 1,100 workers employed by the U.S. Forest Service’s Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers who train young people from disadvantaged rural areas in fire fighting and other similar trades will lose their jobs at the end of September when the Administration closes 9 offices and shifts the other 16 to the Department of Labor, eliminating more than a third of the positions — it is the largest single layoff of federal workers in nearly a decade. 

• People

Fighting sexual harassment at federal agencies

• #MetToo
• Forest Service
• sexual harassment
• women

Last week Democratic Reps Raúl M. Grijalva, the Chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources; Elijah E. Cummings, the Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform; and Jackie Speier, the Chairwoman of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel, expressed their concern over sexual harassment at the US Forest Service in response to a new report from the Department of Agriculture Inspector General identifying numerous failures by management to protect women.