Sustainability
Senate confirms Stone-Manning to head BLM, overcoming months of GOP attacks
The U.S. Senate voted along party lines Thursday night to make Tracy Stone-Manning the first confirmed director of the Bureau of Land Management since the Obama administration. The vote, 50-45, ended a contentious confirmation process for Stone-Manning, a senior adviser for conservation policy at the National Wildlife Federation who served as chief of staff to […]
‘Wildfire year’ meant record days at the highest preparedness level, Forest Service chief says
The U.S. Forest Service spent more consecutive days this summer at the agency’s highest level of preparedness for wildfires than in any previous year, Forest Service Chief Randy Moore told a U.S. House subcommittee Wednesday. Moore’s comments reflected the growing danger from more intense and harder-to -control fires that have swept Western and Midwestern states […]
Feds slap fines on Thacker Pass protestors
Since January, protestors have set up camp about 35 miles south of the Oregon-Nevada border. Now two of the campers involved have been fined nearly $50,000 by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for trespassing. The camp is part of several efforts by conservationists and Native American organizers to stop plans by the Canadian firm […]
Senate – finally – to vote on Stone-Manning to lead BLM
The U.S. Senate is set to vote as soon as Thursday on the nomination of Tracy Stone-Manning, a conservation advocate and former top aide to Montana Democrats, to lead the Bureau of Land Management, putting the end to her contentious confirmation process in sight. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer filed cloture on Stone-Manning’s nomination, setting […]
Wildlife Commission under attack ‘from both extremes,’ says director
Two contentious issues facing Nevada’s Wildlife Commission — coyote killing contests and the state’s “for sport” black bear hunt — and the passions polarizing the debates, are resulting in personal attacks on commissioners and staff, Tony Wasley, the executive director of the Nevada Division Wildlife, said at Friday’s meeting. “We often say that it’s the […]
Nevada groups mustering support for new national monument
Support for a fourth national monument in southern Nevada is strong, say conservation groups, and with the right messaging they believe support will only grow. Those assumptions seem to bare out in a poll of more than 400 likely voters across Nevada, conducted by Data For Progress, a national progressive think tank. The survey, commissioned […]
BLM HQ moving back to DC
The Department of Interior has announced that the headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management will return to Washington, D.C., instead of sharing an office building with an oil and gas company and industry lobbyists in the town of Grand Junction, Colorado. “There’s no doubt that the BLM should have a leadership presence in Washington, […]
Australian firm gets South African funding for Nevada lithium mine
An effort to develop the proposed Rhyolite Ridge lithium mine west of Tonopah gained financing under an agreement announced Thursday in which South African mining company Sibanye-Stillwater will contribute $490 million to a joint venture with ioneer LTD, the Australian firm that has been trying to develop the project. The proposed open-pit mine is opposed […]
Will Thacker Pass be another Keystone?
After tribes secured the death of the Keystone XL pipeline, Native organizers in Nevada are looking to get the same results for the planned Thacker Pass lithium mine. Excavation on sacred native lands was allowed to proceed at the Thacker Pass project earlier this month after a federal judge denied tribal leaders’ requests to temporarily […]
EPA confirms climate impacts are more adverse for racial minorities in the Southwest
The worst effects of climate change are disproportionately falling on “underserved communities who are least able to prepare for, and recover from, heat waves, poor air quality, flooding, and other impacts,” according to an Environmental Protection Agency report released last week. The peer-reviewed report forecasts how the impacts of climate change will be distributed across […]
Four big climate items in the reconciliation bill in Congress
The U.S. House Natural Resources Committee late Thursday approved its first piece of Democrats’ sweeping $3.5 trillion spending blueprint on a party-line 24-13 vote. Among the highest priorities for President Joe Biden in the plan was addressing climate change, and the panel included initiatives ranging from oil and gas reform to offshore wind ventures. The […]
Call for end to killing contests spreads north to Reno City Council
Disgust with Nevada’s wildlife killing contests, which attract hunters from nearby states where the practice is illegal, is not drawn along the geographic lines that divide the state’s north and south, as the Reno City Council proved Wednesday when it voted six to one in favor of a resolution to stop the competitions. “This is […]