Target: Joe Biden, President of the United States
Goal: Support significant scale-back of relentless drilling and mining in Powder River Basin.
Nearly half of coal production in the United States comes from a region around Wyoming and Montana known as the Powder River Basin. The fossil fuel-heavy basin has long come under intense scrutiny for its destructive environmental impacts, particularly regarding methane emissions. In 2018, a federal court ordered revisions to plans for the federally owned lands…revisions that would have restricted strip mining and endorsed cleaner alternative energy sources. As per usual, the Trump administration quickly disregarded this ruling. Unfortunately, their successors, who have touted themselves as environmentalists, are still upholding and defending these detrimental policies.
The Bureau of Land Management recently sent a memo claiming it had abided by the court’s ruling and “considered” alternatives. The memo said nothing about putting any environmentally friendly changes into action, however. Meanwhile, the auctioning off of these important lands to special interests continues on, mostly unabated. A coalition of organizations that actually do care about the environment have implored the Bureau to conduct a new analysis and to take the court’s previous ruling seriously.
Sign the petition below to urge President Biden to speak up and honor the pledges he made to fight for the environment.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear President Biden,
“President Biden promised to hold polluters accountable and accelerate the transition to clean and renewable energy. But while the president calls climate change ‘code red for humanity,’ the administration’s Bureau of Land Management is doubling down on Trump-era policies that prop up a dying coal industry at the expense of American taxpayers.”
This statement, from a coalition fighting the expansion of fossil fuel interests in the Powder River Basin, speaks the truth. A federal order several years ago required the Bureau to scale back mining in the basin and to actively pursue clean energy alternatives. At the moment, the only apparent difference between the Trump Bureau of Land Management and the Biden Bureau of Land Management is in the names. The same destructive policies and the same catering to special interests remain.
Please ensure your employees at this highly influential agency follow the rule of law and honor the pledges for a clean energy transition you made on the campaign trail. If they cannot or will not respect the promises made to the American people, replace them with individuals who will.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: Boyd Norton
1156 Signatures