🚨 Public Comments Needed on NTEC’s Air Permit Application for a new Natural Gas Plant! Comment period ends April 29th!

Link: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

This is cool. Click through and see what I mean!

Reposting due to what has been described as a Bluesky oopsy-poopsie today. Please enjoy 73 sweet-ass western groups speaking truth to power. Let's see if they listen.

Too many folks have swept aside ecological and community values and concerns in their zeal to permit energy, technology, and other extractive infrastructure and cede control of our future to energy and tech oligarchs.

Today, we threw down the gauntlet.

Votes like this remind us all that, because of the R-dominated math in the Senate, Congress cares little for our country's iconic heritage & most special places. It cares only whether the mining and extraction oligarch bosses keep pillaging the environment for profit & power.

Read the full letter at westernlaw.org/news. Huge thanks to our partners in this work: AMIGOS BRAVOS • BADLANDS CONSERVATION ALLIANCE • BIRD ALLIANCE OF OR • CASCADIA WILDLANDS • CBD • CHC CLIMATE JUSTICE ALLIANCE • COALITION FOR CLEAN AFFORDABLE ENERGY • COLUMBIA RIVERKEEPER • COOK INLETKEEPER • DEVIL’S SPRING RANCH • DINÉ CARE • DOUGLAS COUNTY GLOBAL WARMING COALITION • EARTHWORKS • EPIC • FAMILIES FOR A LIVABLE CLIMATE • FRIENDS OF THE EARTH • FRIENDS OF THE INYO • FRIENDS OF THE SHASTA RIVER • FRIENDS OF THE WILD SWAN • GALLATIN WILDLIFE ASSOCIATION • GILA RESOURCES INFORMATION PROJECT • GREAT BASIN WATER NETWORK • GREEN LATINOS • GREEN LATINOS NM • HEALTHY CLIMATE NM • HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION ADVOCATES • KS WILD• LOS PADRES FORESTWATCH • MT ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION CENTER • MT HEALTH PROFESSIONALS FOR A HEALTHY CLIMATE • MOUNT SHASTA BIOREGIONAL ECOLOGY CENTER • NAEVA • NEW MEXICO ACEQUIA ASSOCIATION • NEW MEXICO INTERFAITH POWER AND LIGHT • NEW MEXICO VOICES FOR CHILDREN • NEW MEXICO WILD • NM CAFe – COMMUNITIES EN ACCIÓN Y DE FE • NM NATIVE VOTE • NORTH CASCADES CONSERVATION COUNCIL • NORTHEAST OREGON ECOSYSTEMS • NORTHWEST ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCATES • NUESTRA TIERRA CONSERVATION PROJECT • OLYMPIC PARK ADVOCATES • ORANGE COUNTY COASTKEEPER • OREGON WILD • PARK COUNTY ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL • PARTNERSHIP FOR EARTH SPIRTUALITY • PEOPLE AND POLLINATORS ACTION NETWORK • ROGUE RIVERKEEPER • SAN JUAN CITIZENS ALLIANCE • SAN LUIS VALLEY ECOSYSTEM COUNCIL • SIERRA CLUB – MONTANA CHAPTER • SODA MOUNTAIN WILDERNESS COUNCIL • Southeast Alaska Conservation Council • SPOKANE RIVERKEEPER • THE GLOBAL WARMING EXPRESS • CAREs • TUALATIN RIVERKEEPERS • UMPQUA NATURAL LEADERSHIP SCIENCE HUB • UMPQUA VALLEY AUDUBON SOCIETY • UMPQUA WATERSHEDS • WATER POLICY PATHWAYS • WELC • WORC • WESTERN SLOPE CONSERVATION CENTER • WWP • WHITE MOUNTAIN CONSERVATION LEAGUE • WILD CONNECTIONS ¨ WILDEARTH GUARDIANS • WILDERNESS WORKSHOP • WILLAMETTE RIVERKEEPER • Wyoming Wilderness Association

Read our letter here, and an enormous THANK YOU to the 72 other groups that joined us in this message.

To the Senate: Hold strong against bargaining away our environmental and community protections. Anything else would be unforgivable.

westernlaw.org/wp-content/u...

"It is glaringly obvious that any changes to our bedrock environmental laws signed by President Trump would sacrifice far too much and compromise the imperative to foster a just and equitable transition to an economy powered by renewable energy."

-@riogranderift.bsky.social

These changes would reduce environmental review to a paperwork exercise and limit judicial accountability to the point of meaninglessness. Proponents of permitting reform have also signaled strong interest in changing other bedrock environmental laws, including the clean water act, endangered species act, and national historical preservation act. These proposals effectively neutralize environmental and community protections to accelerate permit approvals for energy, technology, and other infrastructure--primarily climate-harming fossil fuels. We urge you to reject permitting reform for what it is: a reactive capitulation to energy and technology industry demands and the trump administration's deliberately engineered regulatory chaos. There is simply no precedent for what this administration has wrought, and permitting reform proposals under consideration--which scapegoat environmental laws--will only deepen the harm.

Proposed NEPA changes like those in the SPEED Act would reduce enviro review to a paperwork exercise & limit judicial accountability to the point of meaninglessness.

They would neutralize enviro & community protections to accelerate approvals for energy/technologyinfrastructure—mostly fossil fuels.

The Trump administration and its enablers in Congress have demonstrated their hostility to environmental safeguards as well as indifference or ignorance of the public health and ecological effects of these changes by fundamentally eroding, incapacitating, planning to repeal, removing protections for, or fundamentally undermining as agencies the: Endangered Species Act Roadless Rule Endangerment finding on climate emissions Clean Water Act Clean Air Act Methane Rule Public Lands Rule Chaco Culture National Historical Park protection zone Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness protections Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) Powder River Basin coal leasing withdrawal U.S. Forest Service Environmental Protection Agency

These members of Congress think they can squeeze a modicum of renewable energy and/or transmission permitting expedience out of Trump and the Rs. This is folly. Believe the evidence of your eyes and ears. They will destroy everything while slapping each other on the back.

JOINT LETTER How does "permit reform" legislation target NEPA? NEPA requires agencies to: (1) take a hard look at impacts to people, communities, and the environment and disclose those impacts to the public; (2) consider alternatives to avoid and mitigate harm; and (3) provide for public involvement. Sounds like a pretty good idea, right? (Yes, it is). But back in December, thanks to permit reform backers, the SPEED Act (H.R.4776) aimed to permanently dismantle those protections. It passed in the House then, and it's now pending in the Senate.

JOINT LETTER If it passes, what would the SPEED Act or equivalent permit reform legislation do? • Arbitrarily narrow the scope of environmental reviews, paving the way for unchecked resource extraction without proper consideration of environmental and community impacts; • Permit agencies to ignore new scientific or technical research when preparing an environmental review and thereby risk decisions that harm the public interest, and • Eviscerate the public's right to seek justice and accountability in federal court.

"Permit reform" in today's extreme right-wing Congress would mean gutting the National Environmental Policy Act and other bedrock enviro laws, which is unacceptable as the Trump admin attacks every environmental protection, special place (Boundary Waters!), & agency that does some good for nature.

73 western groups to Senate leadership: No to permit reform false solutions

JOINT LETTER Today, 73 western community, conservation, faith, and Indigenous groups representing 2.6 million members and supporters joined WELC in delivering a message to Senate Minority Leader Schumer (NY), Sen. Heinrich (NM), Sen. Whitehouse (RI), and House Minority Leader Jeffries (NY). The joint letter demands they reconsider their pursuit of "permitting reform" that gives massive liberties to energy and technology industries by targeting the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other bedrock environmental laws in the 119th Congress.

This morning, 73 western orgs sent a critical message to @schumer.senate.gov, @heinrich.senate.gov, @whitehouse.senate.gov, and @hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social warning them about negotiating with Rs on permit reform.

PR: westernlaw.org/73-western-g...

The Senate just voted 51-49 to sell out the Boundary Waters to a Chilean mining company to sell nickel, copper, cobalt, etc. to China, a U.S. adversary.

Here is the record of how each senator voted. Be furious and hold them accountable: www.senate.gov/legislative/...

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For over a half century, the Clean Air Act has protected our communities and our planet. But once again, the GOP is trying to gut this critical act—as a war is raging on the Middle East and there is a madman in the White House.

Not on my watch. I will be voting a hell NO.

For all the handwringing about how hard it is to build energy infrastructure in the US, the tech companies have managed to build a remarkable number of data centers and methane gas power plants with virtually no bottlenecks so far…

‘It’s just madness’: Trump administration to close three-quarters of Forest Service research stations Between funding cuts, facility closures, and the inevitable resignations that will follow, there’s virtually no way for the Forest Service to continue to do research at its current level or quality, w...

“The reason why I love these Forest Service research stations is because they have the capacity to look at change over long timescales, the timescales that it actually takes for plant communities to change...A five-year project is a really long project for me, but that’s nothing for a plant”

So hey, time to roll back the National Environmental Policy Act, right centrists? Permit reform? #Abundance?

Hell no.

Not when we're actually making gains.

Screenshot of conversation between Jane Legal and Ari Pekoe as follows: JF: Meaningful changes to the Federal Power Act to enable interregional transmission are worth a lot of uncomfortable permitting sacrifices, and I would like more people in the Democratic coalition to acknowledge this publicly. AP: What you think the FPA should say about interregional transmission? JF: 2 questions here: what's ideal and what one should accept in a deal (the answer to 2 depends on details of FPA reforms *&* asks on NEPA, CWA, NHPA, etc. I think most of the asks so far on the last list are tolerable (some even desirable) if we can get an EPRA-like deal on FPA. JF: i think that climate advocates and some Democrats are a) underestimating the extent to which NEPA, CWA, FHPA, ESA, etc. really do threaten the pace of clean buildout/overestimating the degree to which fossil will "win"; and b) DRASTICALLY underestimating the importance of EPRA. JF: I also think that if Democrats imagine they will be governing in 2029 it is impossible to overstate how important it is to get this done before then, at which point we'll have a hostile fed chair and v limited fiscal space to achieve clean energy and economic goals. AP: Thanks. So sounds like you like the EPRA modifications to the FPA?

I'm sick and tired of folks in the "energy abundance" space with perceived credibility/expertise using their platforms despite: (1) not knowing what they are talking about; & (2) willfully ignoring the multi-dimensional consequences of their pet policy reforms.

File under "permit reform" and #Abundance, too. Just absolute hubris. Captain Planet villain shit. Paging Dr. Blight, Hoggish Greedly, and Looten Plunder.

NEWS RELEASE: #NewMexico communities win stronger air protections as EIB approves historic fee update

First #NMPol fee update since 2009. Partners: @earthworks.bsky.social, CCFF, @nm-ipl.bsky.social, @sierrariogrande.bsky.social, & @envdefensefund.bsky.social

westernlaw.org/new-mexico-c...

How Lee Zeldin Shifted the Mission — And the Message — of the E.P.A. (Gift Article) More than any administrator in decades, Lee Zeldin talks about the Environmental Protection Agency's work in economic terms, reflecting President Trump’s desire to boost industry while downplaying env...

This is a brilliant analysis by Lisa Friedman, with eye-popping graphics by @harrystevens.bsky.social, on how the language of the EPA has changed under the climate-denying Lee Zeldin.

Everyone should read it carefully!

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www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Plans To Withdraw Protections From Oil And Gas Development Around Chaco Prompt 70,000 Public Comments To Federal Agency In One Week

nativenewsonline.net/sovereignty/...

The GOP liars are trying to frame moving the Forest Service to SLC as “streamlining” government.

Bullshit. Republicans are NEVER about improving government services. They are ALWAYS about selling off our birthright to their rich donor asshole buddies

I am incandescent with rage

I’ve heard it said:

If you’re explaining, you’re losing.

Forest Service leadership has a lot of explaining to do— and they know it.

Looking forward to seeing Chief Shultz answer to Congress.

A GENTLE REMINDER: we are trying to eliminate fossil fuels because using them kills us.

If fossil fuels were cheap (they're not) or reliable (they're SO NOT), it would still be urgent to get rid of them because their intended use destroys our life support systems.

Note: Congressional "permitting reform" legislation would radically bolster the Trump administration's attacks on New Mexico's Greater Chaco and the Upper Pecos Watershed--beloved regions where communities have long fought against the ravages of unbridled resource exploitation.

At the Heartland climate-denial conference yesterday, Lee Zelden claimed that high-emissions scenarios were illegitimate, advanced by a “cabal” of climate scientists trying to use unwarranted fear to seize power.

But of course he did!

Here’s how you can fight this fossil-fuel propaganda…

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NEPA and Its Discontents - The American Prospect What’s missing from the political conversation around America’s embattled environmental law?

This 💯 from @hannahstoryb.bsky.social regarding congressional permitting reform battles:

"This pursuit of what is politically feasible is increasingly coming at the cost of considering what is necessary for our planet’s future, as well as what communities deserve."

NEPA and Its Discontents - The American Prospect What’s missing from the political conversation around America’s embattled environmental law?

"Limiting the public’s ability to sue when the executive branch operates outside of the laws passed by elected officials is an anti-democratic reform, particularly as the Trump administration has basically stopped enforcing environmental laws against polluters altogether."

NEPA and Its Discontents - The American Prospect What’s missing from the political conversation around America’s embattled environmental law?

What are we really talking about when we talk about NEPA?

For @prospect.org today, @hannahstoryb.bsky.social spoke with several experts about what the ongoing political debate about reforming the National Environmental Policy Act is missing.

They had plenty of illuminating ideas.