Action – Call your legislators and the House Natural Resource Committee to shut this down.
Last Thursday, we published a shout-out from Jim Hines of the Los Padres Sierra Club describing calls he’d had with Dept. of Interior (DOI) staff that the shutdown was being used to mask mining drilling activity in our national parks, with staff ordered to continue issuing permits. Well, now Trump has ordered more staff back to work on offshore oil and gas projects and he also sneak-signed an executive order to allow logging to continue and expand in our national forests during the shutdown.
Minimum script: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want Rep./Committee [___] to demand that ALL OIL AND GAS-related activities on public land, (including drilling, permit processing, inspections, public meetings and regulatory documents) and ALL TIMBER OPERATIONS on public land be halted until the shutdown is completely lifted.
Contact
House Natural Resource Committee: If you don’t have a legislator on this committee (check here) contact: nrdems@mail.house.gov
Rep. Julia Brownley: email, (CA-26): DC (202) 225-5811, Oxnard (805) 379-1779, T.O. (805) 379-1779
or Rep. Salud Carbajal: email. (CA-24): DC (202) 225-3601, SB (805) 730-1710 SLO (805) 546-8348
Who is my representative/senator?: hq-salsa.wiredforchange.com
Background
OIL/GAS:
Today there’s news that DOI’s Bureau of Offshore Energy Management (BOEM) is carrying out Trump’s destructive and corrupt energy dominance strategy (read this article!) by ordering more workers back to jobs related to offshore oil drilling in the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans, as well as the Gulf of Mexico, some unpaid, some using mysterious “carry-over” funding. REPEAT: NOT ESSENTIAL SERVICES! (Guess what’s not being financed with “carry-over funds”? BOEM responsibilities like opening offsore areas for wind energy development.)
TIMBER!!!:
Right before Christmas, Trump quietly issued an executive order in favor of yet another extractive industry that supported his election. The order expands timber harvest totals from OUR national forests to 4.4 billion board feet, a staggering 31% increase over 2017 levels, on the grounds that it will “curb deadly wildfires”, while ignoring the shrubs that caused much of the damage.
Just as concerning, the executive order also directs management agencies to “streamline” the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act, allowing different public land agencies to push through timber projects without much analysis of how it might destroy the natural environment or engaging the public for input.
Despite the fact that the Forest Service is shuttered, officials there have given loggers permission to keep operating on existing sales — which was prohibited during both the 1995 and 2013 shutdowns — and are now exploring holding new auctions even if the government remains closed.
Oil Reading
- Donald Trump’s Extract-Everything Energy policy dooms us all. (nation)
- Oil companies are drilling on public land for the price of a cup of coffee (Wapo)
- Back to 12.5% – Trump administration reduces royalty rates in first US oil, gas lease sale ((reuters)
- Oil companies hoard land from conservation, recreation and other public uses. – How cheap federal leases benefit oil and gas companies. (americanprogress)
- Drilling towards disaster (common dreams)
- Studies show ice melting and ocean warming both happening much faster (common dreams)
Timber Reading
- Open letter to Decision Makers Concerning Wildfires in the West (GEOS Institute)
- Trump’s executive order will aggressively cut more forest trees.(Wapo)
- Public cut from public lands under Trump order (Southernenvironmental)
- Trump ignores climate change, offers handouts to imber industry in wildfire execcutive order, despite commerical logging increasing wildfire risk (think progress)
- Trump’s executive order will cut more forest trees, “We can’t log our way out of the fire problem (DenverPost)
- Trump issues executive order to increase logging on federal lands (Los Padres Forest Watch)
Fossil fuel industry lobbyists staff and cabinet members so far:
David Bernhardt – Acting secretary of the Interior – former oil industry lobbyist
Andrew Wheeler – Action head of the Environmental Protection Agency – Former coal lobbyist for Murray Energy.
Bernard McNamee – FERC Commissioner – Texas Public Policy Foundation (Koch Oil industry “think tank”)
Erik Baptist – EPA – Senior Deputy General Counsel – American Petroleum Institute lobbyist
Former lobbyist, now staff: here.
INDIVISIBLE VENTURA 