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Viewing recent news releases in program Climate Law Institute .
Lawsuit Filed to Protect Habitat for 12 Endangered Coral Species
WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Trump administration today for failing to protect 12 coral species around Florida and islands in the Pacific Ocean. The corals all received Endangered Species Act protection in 2014, but they did not receive the critical habitat protection the law requires.
Read more.Lawsuit Takes on Trump’s Dirty Power Plan
WASHINGTON— Ten environmental groups sued Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency today to overturn the administration’s Dirty Power Plan and reinstate the Obama-era Clean Power Plan.
Read more.Trump Visit to Plastic Plant Ignores Pollution Crisis, Outdated Federal Rules
MONACA, Pa.― President Donald Trump’s visit today to a massive plastics plant being built in Pennsylvania by Royal Dutch Shell ignores the plastic pollution and toxic chemicals such plants are allowed to release under decades-old federal regulations. Local groups protested today’s visit and the petrochemical industry’s plan to increase U.S. plastic production using the oversupply of fracked natural gas.
Read more.Lawsuit: Trump Is Failing to Protect Emperor Penguins From Climate Crisis
WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Trump administration today for failing to act on a petition to protect emperor penguins under the Endangered Species Act.
Read more.Lawsuit Launched Over Trump Administration’s Approval of Oil-waste Dumping in California’s Arroyo Grande Aquifer
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.— The Center for Biological Diversity filed a notice today of its intent to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for ignoring threats to endangered wildlife in its recent approval of an aquifer exemption in the area around the Arroyo Grande oilfield.
Read more.Legal Petition Seeks Ban on Plastic Pollution From Petrochemical Plants
WASHINGTON― More than 270 community and conservation organizations filed a legal petition today that demands the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency adopt strict new water-pollution limits for industrial plants that create plastic.
Read more.Lawsuit Forces Trump Administration to Consider Oil Drilling’s Harm to Endangered Wildlife in Gulf of Mexico
TAMPA, Fla.— Prompted by a lawsuit filed by three conservation groups, the Trump administration has finally agreed to complete a legally required consultation about the harm offshore oil drilling does to whales and other threatened and endangered wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico.
Read more.Congressional Resolution Declares Climate Emergency
WASHINGTON— Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) unveiled a concurrent resolution today to declare the climate crisis an emergency warranting a “massive-scale mobilization to halt, reverse and address” its consequences.
Read more.Louisiana to Hold Hearing on Massive Formosa Plastics Toxic Chemical Complex
ST. JAMES PARISH, La.— Louisiana will hold a public hearing on issuing 15 air permits for Taiwanese company Formosa Plastics. The massive proposed complex would be one of the largest and most toxic plastic production facilities in the world.
Read more.Federal Court Rules Formosa Plastics Is Liable for Plastic Pollution in Texas
VICTORIA, Texas— A federal judge in Texas on Thursday found Formosa Plastics liable for polluting Texas waterways with billions of plastic pellets from its plant in Point Comfort. The Taiwanese company is currently seeking permits to build an even larger plastic-making plant along the Mississippi River in St. James Parish, La., a project strongly opposed by local residents and national conservation groups.
Read more.California to Evaluate Curbing Oil, Gas Extraction
SACRAMENTO, Calif.— Gov. Gavin Newsom Thursday signed into law this year’s California budget, which includes the allocation of $1.5 million toward a study to “identify strategies to decrease demand and supply of fossil fuels.” The provision marks the first step the state has taken toward decreasing the state’s fossil fuel production.
Read more.Trump Administration to Dredge San Francisco Bay to Make Room for More Oil
OAKLAND, Calif.— Public-interest groups filed a joint letter Monday with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers strongly warning against efforts to dredge a deeper channel through San Francisco Bay.
Read more.Trump's EPA Finalizes Dirty Power Plan
WASHINGTON— The Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency today released its final rule that scraps the Clean Power Plan and lets states decide whether, and how, to limit power-plant pollution.
Read more.Trump Administration Sued for Failing to Protect Imperiled Ice Seals’ Arctic Habitat
WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity sued the National Marine Fisheries Service today for failing to designate critical habitat in Alaska for two ice-seal species. Both bearded and ringed seals are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act because climate change is melting their Arctic sea-ice habitat.
Read more.Appeals Court Throws Out Case Blocking Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline, Relying on New Permit Issued by President Trump
SAN FRANCISCO— The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a legal challenge to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, ruling the case was no longer active due to President Trump’s revocation of the permit at the center of the case. In March, Trump issued a new “presidential” permit for Keystone XL, in an effort to spur construction of the pipeline.
Read more.Lawsuit Launched to Force Trump EPA to Protect California’s Ventura County From Deadly Smog
VENTURA, Calif.— The Center for Biological Diversity and Center for Environmental Health filed a notice today of their intent to sue the Trump administration for failing to finalize plans to curtail dangerous smog in Ventura County, Calif.
Read more.Court Urged to Reject Discrimination Against Arizona Rooftop-solar Customers
PHOENIX— The Center for Biological Diversity today took legal action in a federal court to challenge an Arizona power-utility company’s discrimination against rooftop-solar customers.
Read more.Rally to Oppose Dangerous Oil-industry Injections in Santa Maria Aquifers
SANTA MARIA, Calif.— Santa Barbara County residents and environmental advocates will rally Wednesday against a proposed aquifer exemption that could pollute groundwater and drastically expand oil drilling in the county. The rally will precede the state’s public meeting on the proposal.
Read more.2019 Hurricane Predictions Spell Disaster for Coastal Communities, Wildlife
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.— The 2019 Atlantic hurricane season officially starts on Saturday, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicting a total of nine to 15 named storms and as many as four major hurricanes.
Read more.Lawsuit Launched to Protect Hawaii’s Cauliflower Coral After 36 Percent Decline
HONOLULU— The Center for Biological Diversity today filed a notice of intent to sue the Trump administration for failing to protect cauliflower coral around the Hawaiian Islands. The bushy, shallow-water coral species has been devastated by ocean warming triggered by human-caused climate change.
Read more.Disregarding Climate, Trump Administration Pushes to Re-open Public Lands to Coal Leasing
WASHINGTON— The Trump administration today restarted an effort to reopen public lands to new federal coal leasing. In today’s action, the Interior Department responded to a court order overturning its illegal nixing of a nationwide coal leasing moratorium with a highly abbreviated environmental review.
Read more.Rallies in Bakersfield, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara to Oppose Trump's Oil-leasing Plan for California
BAKERSFIELD, Calif.— Environmental and community groups joined by elected officials will hold rallies this week to blast the Trump administration’s draft plan to open more than a million acres of public land and mineral estate in central California to oil drilling and fracking. The rallies will precede each of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s public hearings in Bakersfield, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara.
Read more.Pipeline Shutdown Prevented 27 Million Tons of Carbon Pollution in California
SANTA BARBARA, Calif.— The closure of Plains All American Pipeline’s coastal California oil pipeline after it ruptured four years ago has prevented massive emissions of climate pollution. If the seven offshore drilling platforms served by the pipeline had not gone idle, they would have added 27 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution to the atmosphere. That’s roughly equivalent to operating two coal-fired power plants in California over the same period — or burning almost 30 billion pounds of coal.
Read more.Lawsuit Challenges Trump Administration Approval of Massive Utah Oil Shale Development
BONANZA, Utah— Conservation groups today sued the Trump administration to challenge what would be the nation’s first commercial-scale oil shale mine and processing facility. The lawsuit says officials failed to protect several endangered species when they approved rights-of-way across public lands to provide utilities to the proposed oil shale development.
Read more.Report: Trump Fracking Leases Top 1 Gigaton of Potential Climate Pollution in Lower 48
TUCSON, Ariz.— A new Center for Biological Diversity report shows that the Trump administration is dramatically ramping up oil and gas leases, offering nearly 5 million acres of public lands in the lower 48 states ― most of it in Wyoming and Utah. Those leases, offered as scientists warn that fossil fuels should be rapidly phased out, contain 1 gigaton of potential greenhouse gas pollution.
Read more.Trump Finalizes Plan to Open 725,500 Acres of California's Central Coast to Drilling, Fracking
MARINA, Calif.— The Trump administration today finalized a plan to open 725,500 acres of public lands and mineral estate across California’s Central Coast and the Bay Area to new oil and gas drilling. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management plan is an increase of nearly 327,000 acres from the draft proposal prepared under the Obama administration.
Read more.Oregon Denies Key Permit for Proposed Jordan Cove Natural Gas Project
SALEM, Ore.— The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality today issued a resounding denial of the proposed Jordan Cove LNG project and the Pacific Connector fracked gas pipeline, which have faced fierce opposition from a grassroots coalition for more than a decade. The denial effectively stops the project from moving forward.
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