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Sumer Shaikh, Sierra Club, 774-545-0128, sumer.shaikh@sierraclub.org
Trump Administration Plan Expands Fossil Fuel Extraction Across Southwestern Colorado at Expense of Ag, Endangered Species, Recreation
The Trump administration today announced the release of its final plan
The Trump administration today announced the release of its final plan to expand drilling and fracking and other fossil fuel extraction across southwestern Colorado for the next two decades, threatening organic agriculture, recreation and endangered species while undermining the state's climate law. It will be published in the Federal Register on Friday.
The Bureau of Land Management's final Uncompahgre land-management plan and record of decision will guide the use of public lands across nearly 1.7 million acres of mountains, woodlands and red-rock deserts for decades to come.
"The Uncompahgre land-management plan gives the initial green light to widespread, long-term oil and gas development in the ecologically sensitive North Fork Valley," said Melissa Hornbein with the Western Environmental Law Center. "This plan, unconscionable as the connections between fossil fuel emissions and global climate change become clearer every day, has the potential to exponentially increase greenhouse gas pollution in the region over the next decade, when we need to be drastically reducing emissions."
"It makes no climate, ecological or economic sense to drill in the North Fork Valley," said Natasha Leger, executive director of Citizens for a Healthy Community. "This is exactly the type of federal action that is responsible for accelerating climate and environmental degradation, which cannot be allowed to stand if we have any hope of protecting present and future generations, rare and irreplaceable ecosystems like the North Fork, and meeting Colorado's goals for a clean and renewable energy future."
The plan ignores 42,000 public comments in opposition, as well as problems identified in the groups' July protest. The agency refused to consider alternatives to curb fossil-fuel leasing and failed to analyze how expanding fracking and drilling could harm organic agriculture, the climate and endangered species like the Colorado pikeminnow and Gunnison sage grouse. The conservation groups are asking the BLM to redo its environmental impact statement and support a plan that recommends no new leasing.
"This dangerous plan ignores climate science and steamrolls the communities that care deeply about these beautiful public lands," said Diana Dascalu-Joffe, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Coloradoans understand that we must end fracking to avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis. We'll do everything possible to prevent this reckless plan from becoming reality."
The BLM's oil and gas production forecast shows the plan would increase climate pollution in the region by more than 2,300 percent over the next decade. Colorado's new law calls for cutting greenhouse gas pollution in half by 2030.
"The plan would severely undermine Colorado's climate goals and entrench the North Fork Valley in decades of dirty fossil fuel extraction," said Rebecca Fischer, climate and energy program attorney for WildEarth Guardians. "Ultimately, the Trump administration is testing Colorado's commitment to its new climate law, and its success depends on the state stepping up to defend bold climate action."
The plan would allow fracking on more than half of the 675,000 acres of public land and almost a million acres of federal minerals that it covers, and coal extraction on another 371,000 acres. The BLM's environmental impact analysis fails to tally direct and indirect climate pollution that would result from fossil fuel production.
Meanwhile a draft plan for eastern Colorado, released by the Trump administration in June, would triple annual greenhouse gas pollution from oil and gas development by 2037. These two plans will dictate public-land management in Colorado for decades.
"The Trump administration's effort to expand drilling on lands in the midst of a climate crisis is reckless," said Kim Pope, organizing representative for the Sierra Club. "Time and again, the BLM makes dangerous land management decisions at the expense of communities and wildlife. Instead of this backward agenda, the Bureau of Land Management must prioritize the input of the public and work with them to protect lands and communities to slow climate disruption."
The region includes the North Fork Valley and Telluride, areas that support exceptional outdoor recreation and Colorado's burgeoning organic agriculture hub. The area also includes numerous threatened and endangered species, including Colorado pikeminnows, razorback suckers, greenback cutthroat trout and Gunnison sage grouse.
Background
Fossil fuel production on public lands causes about a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas pollution. Peer-reviewed science estimates that a nationwide federal fossil fuel leasing ban would reduce carbon emissions by 280 million tons per year, ranking it among the most ambitious federal climate policy proposals in recent years.
Federal fossil fuels that have not been leased to industry contain up to 450 billion tons of potential climate pollution; those already leased to industry contain up to 43 billion tons. Pollution from already-leased fossil fuels on federal lands, if fully developed, would essentially exhaust the U.S. carbon budget for a 1.5 degree Celsius target.
Existing laws give Congress and presidents the authority to end new federal fossil fuel leasing. Hundreds of organizations have already petitioned the federal government to end new onshore and offshore leasing.
The Western Environmental Law Center uses the power of the law to safeguard the public lands, wildlife, and communities of the American West in the face of a changing climate. We envision a thriving, resilient West, abundant with protected public lands and wildlife, powered by clean energy, and defended by communities rooted in an ethic of conservation.
(541) 485-2471'A Corporate CEO's Dream': Labor Unions Blast Trump-Vance Ticket
"This ticket isn't pro-worker or pro-union. It's the billionaire ticket through and through," said one labor leader.
Leading U.S. unions warned voters on Monday not to be fooled by the pro-worker facade constructed by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio who has opposed
congressional efforts to strengthen organizing rights, allowed corporate lobbyists to influence his legislating, and raked in donations from the elites he claims to despise.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO—the nation's largest federation of unions—said in a statement the combined records of Trump and Vance make clear that, if elected, they "would eviscerate unions and empty workers' pockets just to boost the profits of their corporate friends and donors."
"Donald Trump has a miserable record of breaking every promise he's made to working people—from failing to pay his workers and crossing a picket line to his disastrous four years in the White House," said Shuler. "That betrayal would continue if he is reelected—so it's no surprise Trump chose a vice president who will be nothing more than a rubber stamp for that anti-worker vision."
Shuler continued:
Sen. JD Vance likes to play union supporter on the picket line, but his record proves that to be a sham. He has introduced legislation to allow bosses to bypass their workers’ unions with phony corporate-run unions, disparaged striking UAW members while collecting hefty donations from one of the major auto companies, and opposed the landmark Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would end union-busting "right to work" laws and make it easier for workers to form unions and win strong contracts.
"A Trump-Vance White House," she added, "is a corporate CEO's dream and a worker's nightmare."
Service Employees International Union president April Verrett offered a similar assessment of the Trump-Vance ticket, saying that while Vance "may portray himself as a working-class hero," his "record tells another story."
"The truth is that Senator Vance's loyalties lie with the Wall Street bankers and Silicon Valley billionaires who have bankrolled his political career," said Verrett. "Together, Donald Trump and JD Vance will seek to protect the wealthy and corporations while enacting their insidious Project 2025 agenda. There's a stark contrast between Biden-Harris, who have backed workers and taken action to lower prices and raise wages, and Trump-Vance, who side with price-gouging, union-busting corporations."
BREAKING: Donald Trump has selected JD Vance as his running mate.
Vance claims that he's all about taking on elites.
But the donor list from his Senate campaign tells another story. His top donor occupation was CEO. pic.twitter.com/zFrEx9vMKY
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) July 15, 2024
The unions' statements came as Republican delegates at the party's convention in Wisconsin—a state that's been
described as a "laboratory" for the GOP's anti-union agenda—formally nominated Trump as their presidential candidate, shortly after an assassination attempt.
GOP delegates also approved their party's platform, which includes the vague promise to put "American workers first" but does not mention the word "union." The nation's union membership rate fell to an all-time low last year thanks to a long-running war on labor rights waged by corporate America and its GOP allies.
The Republican platform contains an ostensibly pro-worker pledge to exempt tips from taxation, a vow that—according to one critic—"appears to be a way for Republicans to change the subject if anyone questions their opposition to raising the minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 for the past two decades."
Despite backlash from within his union, Teamsters president Sean O'Brien delivered a primetime address to the Republican convention Monday night, praising Trump for his supposed willingness to "hear from new, loud, and often critical voices."
But other union leaders expressed a much harsher view of the former president, given that during his first term he stacked federal agencies and courts with opponents of organized labor and worked to gut worker protections. Trump's reelection campaign is backed by at least a dozen billionaires, including the world's richest man, Elon Musk.
"This ticket isn't pro-worker or pro-union," said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, urging workers not to buy the "slick rhetoric" of Trump's running mate.
"It's the billionaire ticket through and through," Nelson added.
The Wall Street Journalreported Monday that Musk intends to commit "around $45 million a month" to a new pro-Trump super PAC. Musk, the CEO of Tesla, seemed to deny the report by posting a meme on his social media platform.
Climate Movement Sounds Alarm on Trump Picking 'Big Oil Sellout' JD Vance for VP
"JD Vance will sell out to the highest bidder, whether that's Trump or the fossil fuel industry," said one Sunrise Movement campaigner. "That makes him dangerous."
Climate campaigners reacted to former U.S. President Donald Trump's selection of Sen. JD Vance as his running mate Monday by highlighting the Ohio Republican's climate denial and strong support for the fossil fuel industry—one of his top campaign contributors.
"Like Donald Trump, JD Vance has proven that he will make it a top priority to roll back climate protections while answering to the demands of oil and gas CEOs," Sunrise Movement communications director Stevie O'Hanlon said in a statement. "Vance is one of Congress' biggest recipients of donations from oil companies."
"JD Vance not only flip-flopped on supporting Trump, he flip-flopped on climate," she continued. "He went from expressing concern about climate change before running for the Senate, to voting to gut [Environmentl Protection Agency] protections and denying that there even is a climate change crisis."
O'Hanlon added: "JD Vance will sell out to the highest bidder, whether that's Trump or the fossil fuel industry. That makes him dangerous. Donald Trump was the worst president for climate in U.S. history. JD Vance will empower Donald Trump to enact even worse damage on our planet in a second Trump administration."
Some of Trump's key first-term Cabinet appointees—including Rex Tillerson, his first secretary of state, and Ryan Zinke, who headed the Interior Department—were former fossil fuel executives or had track records of supporting the oil, gas, and coal industries.
Trump's White House tenure was also marked by an
aggressive rollback of climate and environmental regulations and protections.
Food & Water Watch Action deputy director Mitch Jones said that "just like Trump himself, JD Vance is a fossil fuel backer and climate change denier that poses a serious risk to public health and our environment."
"Among the countless reasons that Trump and Vance shouldn't be elected to lead our country, the duo represents an existential threat to a livable climate future for all Americans and people around the globe," Jones added.
JL Andrepont of 350 Action asserted that "we are facing a dire need to ward off further climate catastrophe and injustice, so let's be clear: JD Vance is another climate-denying authoritarian who poses massive danger to this country."
"He has praised the horrific Project 2025 plan and said there are 'good ideas in there,'" they continued. "He says he would be totally fine with a federal ban on abortion. And as the effects of climate change accelerate at an alarming pace right in front of our eyes, Vance is a strong supporter of the oil and gas industry who claims that climate change is not a threat."
"We must reject him and all climate deniers at the polls," Andrepont stressed.
Targeting Corporate Landlords, Biden to Unveil National Rent Control Plan
"The rent is too damn high—and rent control is a real fix," one group said, praising the proposal.
As former U.S. President Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination and announced his running mate on Monday, Democratic President Joe Biden prepared to unveil a proposal that would cap annual rent increases at 5% for tenants of major landlords.
After Biden briefly previewed the proposal during a press conference last week, The Washington Postreported on the planned announcement Monday, citing three people familiar with the matter. The Associated Press separately confirmed the plan.
Biden is set to formally introduce the proposal on Tuesday in Nevada, which "has seen among the biggest explosions of housing costs in the country," the Post noted. "Democrats have grown increasingly concerned that Trump could win the state in November."
The president, who is seeking reelection, will propose taking a tax benefit away from landlords who hike rents by more than 5% annually, according to the reporting. The plan would only apply to the existing housing stock of landlords who own more than 50 units and would require congressional approval—so it is not expected to go anywhere unless Biden wins in November and Democrats secure majorities in both chambers of Congress.
As the newspaper detailed:
The Biden administration is also pushing numerous policies to increase housing construction, through incentives to local governments to change their zoning codes and new federal financial incentives for builders.If implemented, they could bring 2 million new units to the market in addition to the 1.6 million already in the pipeline.
"It would make little sense to make this move by itself. But you have to look at it in the context of the moves they propose to make to expand supply," said Jim Parrott, nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute and co-owner of Parrott Ryan Advisors. "The question is: Even if we get all these new units built, what do we do about rising rents in the meantime? Coming up with a relatively targeted bridge to help renters while new supply is coming online makes a fair amount of sense."
While housing industry representatives criticized the reported proposal, Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, told The Associated Press that having it in effect in recent years could have helped renters.
"The recent unprecedented increases in homelessness in communities across the country are the result of those equally unprecedented—and unjustified—rent hikes of a couple years ago," she said. "Had such protections against rent gouging been in place then, many families could have avoided homelessness and stayed stably housed."
Other rent control advocates and progressive officials also welcomed the plan, with Kendra Brooks—the first Working Families Party member ever elected to Philadelphia City Council—declaring that "this is exactly the kind of leadership that working families need!"
Jacobin's Branko Marcetic said that "this is huge," particularly considering that "housing has rapidly climbed as a cost-of-living concern (and is also under 30s' most important issue)."
Multiple campaigners and organizations credited housing advocates for pushing rent control at the national level.
"It's amazing how rapidly the conversation around rent caps has changed," noted Shamus Roller, executive director of the National Housing Law Project. "Tenant organizing has created this change. It's a proposal for Congress which will face serious headwinds but the president just called for rent caps (even if only temporarily)."
The Debt Collective said, "We will say it over and over again: The rent is too damn high—and rent control is a real fix."
"Rent caps wouldn't be a national policy proposal without tenants unions across the country making it possible through organizing," the group added. "On our way to land without landlords, remember that rent control works. The 99%'s need for a roof over our head should not be 1% profits."