Environmental groups sue Trump administration over drilling plan

The Hill ^ | October 30, 2019 | Rachel Frazin

[CedarDave]

Environmental groups on Wednesday filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's plan to open up hundreds of thousands of acres of land in California to oil and gas drilling.

The Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over the plan to open more than 700,000 acres of land to oil and gas lease sales.

"Defendants failed to consider meaningful alternatives to the plan amendment, failed to analyze and disclose the environmental impacts, and denied the public the opportunity to comment on its environmental analyses as the law requires," the lawsuit reads.

It also says the plan opens the land up to "dangerous and polluting techniques like steam injection and hydraulic fracturing."

BLM spokeswoman Sarah Webster told Reuters in a statement that the suit was under agency review.

She said the administration's decision “strikes a balance between resource conservation and energy development consistent with BLM’s mission for managing the lands for multiple use and sustained yield.”

“Oil and gas extraction is a dirty, dangerous business that poisons our water, kills wildlife and worsens the climate crisis,"Clare Lakewood, senior Center for Biological Diversity attorney, said in a statement.

"It’s reckless and illegal for Trump officials to open our public lands to oil companies without considering the human and environmental costs. We’re taking them to court to keep this planet livable for our kids,” Lakewood added.

[CedarDave]

The idiots in California still don't understand that it's their climate change extremism and bans on brush clearing and forest management that is making natural climate cycles of rainfall and drought much worse for the residents. For the rest of the country its an object lesson on how one state's environmental extremism makes life for all its residents much harder.

[Reno89519]

Do they live there? Have they ever even been there? What standing do they have?

[Bommer]

Feds should counter sue the Sierra club for all the pollution created from them stopping a proper forest management system to be put in place. Sue them for half a trillion dollars for all the damage and pollution they are responsible for due to their activism, and bankrupt them

[CedarDave]

The current state government in New Mexico is trying to follow California’s example with their requirements that all electricity be by renewables by 2045 even though the state is #3 in oil and natural gas production and gas is the cheapest way to generate electricity. The industry also provides over one-third of all state revenues. An attempt by radicals to ban fracking was defeated in the last legislature, but the enviro-nazis will be back next session to try again with that and to emulate other Calfornia “progrssive” legislation.

[CedarDave]

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[clearcarbon]

"We’re taking them to court to keep this planet livable for our kids"

Excluding their kids they sent to landfills, whose left? The imported kids?

[Tejas Rob]

Better do what they say or they’ll burn it to the ground.

[Truthoverpower]

I love love love Taos, Santa Fe , arroyo Seco and the entire Ring of fire area

kachina Peak is one of my favorite places on planet earth

Blue mountain Indian reservation is sacred

Northern new Mexico ping !

And then there’s truth or consequences and the whole southern area don’t even get me started about that!

Whole New Mexico ping !

[july4thfreedomfoundation]

I was thinking the same thing.

How do these professional ecofreaks even have standing?

[montag813]

Just pretend Obama is president. Sign an order and ignore all legal challenges until you leave office.

Cite "national security" and invoke the Patriot Act. Can't afford to be dependent on terror-involved nations (basically all of OPEC). USA PATRIOT allows bypassing of environmental laws for national security.

[rktman]

To increase the acreage being drilled?

[Cobra64]

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/photo/2014/08/the-urban-oil-fields-of-los-angeles/u02_3b03816u/main_900.jpg?1420498883

[LeonardFMason]

Can’t they start making it livable in LA, SF, Sacramento?

[eyeamok]

The Sierra Club is and always has been a Terrorist Organization, and the Blame for there Majority of the Fires we are seeing can be laid at their feet.

The Sierra Club of Terrorists is Directly Responsible for Most of what is wrong in California, th3ey should ALL be sent to Venezuela along with Every person on Earth that gave them money to perpetrate this Jihad on California.

[Rumplemeyer]

These groups are funned by the very the very suet’s they file. Win or lose ALL their expenses are reimbursed by the Feds, it is written into the laws that give them standing to sue.

Eliminate this provision and they will loose their funding, which means WE THE PEOPLE will not be required to fund them.

Imagine, vast herds of ambulance chasers having to be find work NOT paid for by the taxpayer...

[American in Israel]

I would love to see the Sierria Club be required to file an eco impact statement and be required to pay restitution for the destruction of California.

[backwoods-engineer]

DRILL CALI! Drill it hard and drill it long! Drill it like Laz would! Drill it until the price of crude drops by a factor of two on the open market!

[Wonder Warthog]

"...and gas is the cheapest way to generate electricity.

AND CLEANEST! For every coal-fired plant replaced by a gas-fired plant of equivalent wattage, the CO2 emitted per watt generated drops drastically.