Under the 44th president, the West re-examined its relationship to energy and the climate. Eight years ago, President-elect Barack Obama wanted Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar to be his Interior secretary. David Hayes, who was leading Obama’s transition team for Interior and other agencies, remembers trekking to Salazar’s office on Capitol Hill at least twice to [...]

The Western movement to transfer federal lands scores an early victory in the new Congress. by Elizabeth Shogren On the first day of its new session, the U.S. House passed a new rule designed to make it easier to transfer federal lands to states, local communities or Indian tribes by assuming that these transfers would [...]

The pipeline was approved without environmental reviews, adequate assessment of cultural properties and sacred sites, or the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of the Standing Rock Sioux affirmed in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In addition to violating sovereign Indigenous rights and responsibilities, continued pipeline construction and any spills pose significant [...]

Radioactive Isotopes Found in Fracking Waste US oil and natural gas production, has been boosted in recent years by a drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, commonly called “fracking.” But this practice has also been criticized for its possible impact on the environment because of the wastewater this method generates. A new study published in [...]

by Jonathan Thompson The Piñon Pipeline, touted as the Southwest’s version of the Dakota Access Pipeline, has perished, even before the real battle over it began. In mid-December the project’s proponents formally withdrew their right of way application, which was being reviewed by the Bureau of Land Management.  Saddle Butte San Juan LLC first proposed [...]

By Bobby Magill The U.S. may be on the cusp of a stark turning point in energy and climate policy with the election of Donald Trump, who has stocked his cabinet with a majority of people who doubt or reject established climate science. Top priorities of the Trump transition team and cabinet nominees — many [...]

by Leigh Black Irvin FARMINGTON — The Bureau of Land Management’s Farmington Field Office has received a withdrawal letter for a right-of-way application required for the proposed Pinon Gathering System Project, better known as the Pinon Pipeline project, effectively killing the project, according to a BLM press release. The letter received Friday from Saddle Butte San Juan, [...]

WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. — Nicole Mitchell, 15, admitted she played hooky to attend Friday’s public scoping meeting on oil and gas development near Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a United Nations World Heritage Site. “I’m only 15. Why am I here?” Mitchell said as she stood before federal officials from the Bureau of Land Management [...]

Fracking,” or the extractive method of hydraulic fracturing, is one of those issues on which many otherwise informed people haven’t yet come up to speed—especially if they are not directly affected by earthquakes, spoiled aquifers, and debilitating illnesses from exposure to toxic chemicals like benzene and toluene. Extreme energy extraction often happens in isolated rural [...]

The Bureau of Land Management is taking comment on the Verde Transmission Line that would permanently scar the Pojoaque Valley, vistas that are not only part of a historic panorama but critical to many filmmakers who will not be charmed by 120-foot high towers spaced 800 feet apart. What’s more, the lines would endanger bird [...]