Tag Archives: Sierra Club

Locals Celebrate ‘Tremendous Victory’ Against South Louisiana Methanol Petrochemical Complex

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The company “finally threw in the towel having learned that our community will not back down in the fight to protect our health and well-being from more industrial pollution,” said Sharon Lavigne of RISE St. James.

By Jessica Corbett  Published 9-9-2022 by Common Dreams

Sharon Lavigne, founder of community group RISE St. James in Louisiana, was the 2021 Goldman Environmental Prize winner for North America. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

Community organizers and their supporters are celebrating that after years of local resistance, South Louisiana Methanol won’t complete a stalled $2.2 billion petrochemical complex in a region known as “Cancer Alley.”

In a statement Friday, the environmental law organization Earthjustice and groups it has represented in challenges to the project—RISE St. James, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Healthy Gulf, and Sierra Club—highlighted a letter to the company from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ). Continue reading →

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Biden Accused of Lighting Fuse for ‘One of the Nation’s Biggest Carbon Bombs’

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“This is pouring another 5 billion gallons of oil on the fire every year and bulldozing a national forest in the process,” said one critic. “It’s a horrifying step in the wrong direction.”

By Kenny Stancil  Published 7-7-2022 by Common Dreams

An oil trai outside Essex, Montana. Photo: Roy Luck/flickr/CC

The Biden administration came under fire this week after paving the way for an oil railway that its own projections suggest would increase planet-heating pollution in the United States by almost 1%.

President Joe Biden “should be doing everything in his power to respond to the climate emergency, but he’s about to light one of the nation’s biggest carbon bombs,” Deeda Seed, a campaigner with the Center for Biological Diversity, said Wednesday in a statement. Continue reading →

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Rallies Held Across US for ‘Climate, Care, Jobs, and Justice’

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“The president and Congress must protect our planet and the people who call Earth home—now.”

By Kenny Stancil  Published 4-23-2022 by Common Dreams

SEIU executive vice president Gerry Hudson speaks at the “Fight for Our Future” rally in Washington, D.C. on April 23, 2022. (Photo: Adrien Salazar/Twitter)

Scores of people in communities around the United States took to the streets on Saturday to demand swift and bold legislative and executive action to tackle the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis as well as skyrocketing inequality.

At “Fight for Our Future” rallies held in Washington, D.C., Phoenix, Atlanta, and more than 40 additional cities across the country, the message was simple: Time is running out for Congress and President Joe Biden to make the bold investments needed to create millions of unionized clean energy and care sector jobs that can simultaneously mitigate greenhouse gas pollution along with economic and racial injustice. Continue reading →

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US Mobilization Planned to Demand ‘Livable, Just, and Healthy Planet for All’

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“We’ve already waited too long to enact reforms that address this climate emergency,” said the co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy. “Our federal government must act now.”

By Jessica Corbett  Published 4-21-2022 by Common Dreams

The Climate Strike and march in Pittsburgh on 9/24/21. Photo: Mark Dixon/flickr/CC

Over 20 advocacy organizations are planning a nationwide “Fight for Our Future” mobilization for Saturday to demand climate action from the Biden administration and Congress.

On the heels of Earth Day, demonstrators plan to gather in Washington, D.C., and communities across the United States to reiterate the necessity of pursuing bold policies to combat the fossil-fueled planetary emergency, citing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released earlier this month. Continue reading →

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Biden Takes ‘Critical First Step’ to Fix Landmark Environmental Law Gutted by Trump

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“The Biden administration cannot stop here,” said one advocate, calling on the White House “to ensure we tap NEPA’s full potential to address the unprecedented environmental challenges we face now.”

By Jessica Corbett  Published 4-19-2022 by Common Dreams

While welcoming the White House’s move Tuesday to repair some of the damage that the Trump administration did to a federal law known as “the Magna Carta of environmental legislation,” green groups also urged President Joe Biden to go even further.

The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) finalized its “phase 1” rule for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), reaffirming that federal agencies reviewing infrastructure projects such as highways and pipelines must consider all relevant environmental impacts, including those that are climate-related. Continue reading →

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‘Monstrous’ Methane Plume Seen From Space Highlights Invisible Fracking Dangers

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“While this event is particularly severe, Louisiana is already forced to live through an exorbitant amount of pollution daily from fossil fuel and petrochemical plants.”

By Julia Conley.  Published 2-16-2022 by Common Dreams

A satellite image shows a plume of methane stretching across much of Louisiana on January 21, 2022. (Image: Kayrros SAS)

Environmental justice advocates on Wednesday pointed to a methane plume so large it was seen last month from space via satellite as the latest evidence that emissions of the potent fossil fuel must be reined in.

As Bloomberg reported Monday, the geoanalytics firm Kayrros SAS detected the plume of the invisible greenhouse gas, which spanned 56 miles and covered several parishes across Louisiana, on January 21. Continue reading →

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Heavily Polluted Louisiana Community Asks EPA to Step In

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“Louisiana has failed to protect fenceline communities, including St. John residents, from the harms of highly polluting facilities,” said one local advocate.

By Kenny Stancil.  Published 1-20-2022 by Common Dreams

A pair of local advocacy groups in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana, submitted a civil rights complaint to the U.S. EPA on Thursday, accusing two state agencies of failing to protect residents of the low-income and predominantly Black jurisdiction from toxic air.

According to the complaint—filed by Earthjustice and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law on behalf of Concerned Citizens of St. John (CCSJ) and the Sierra Club—the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) and the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) have violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits entities receiving federal financial assistance from engaging in activities that subject individuals to discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin. Continue reading →

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Climate Coalition Demands Biden Halt ‘Outrageous’ Offshore Drilling Auction—Largest in US History

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The proposed lease sale, said over 250 groups in a joint letter, “shockingly offers more area than the Trump administration initially proposed.”

By Brett Wilkins.  Published 11-10-2021 by Common Dreams.

Offshore oil rig off Catalina Island. Ohoto: arbyreed/flickr/CC

As the Biden administration prepares to auction off more than 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for fossil fuel extraction, over 250 advocacy groups published an open letter on Wednesday imploring U.S. President Joe Biden to cancel the sale and fulfill his promises of bold climate action.

At least 267 organizations, including 36 representing Gulf of Mexico communities, sent the letter to Biden, who just last week promised the world at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Scotland—also known as COP26—that the United States will be “leading by the power of our example” in the fight against the planetary emergency. Continue reading →

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Biden Admin. Sued for Letting Big Oil Harass ‘Imperiled’ Polar Bears

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“We’re hopeful the court will overturn this dangerous rule that puts polar bears in the crosshairs.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams.  Published 9-16-2021

A new rule announced on August 4, 2021 by the Biden administration will allow fossil fuel companies operating in northern Alaska to harass polar bears and walruses while searching or drilling for oil. Photo: Andreas Weith/Wikimedia/CC

A coalition of conservation groups sued the Biden administration on Thursday over the U.S. Department of the Interior’s recent rule allowing fossil fuel companies to harass polar bears and walruses while searching and drilling for oil and gas in the Southern Beaufort Sea.

Announced last month by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the rule was quickly blasted as “disturbing” by Kristen Monsell, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups behind the new federal lawsuit (pdf) in Alaska. Continue reading →

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Wisconsin on Track for Another ‘Wolf Slaughter,’ Sparking Calls for Federal Protections

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“Our state’s Natural Resources Board voted today to double down on wolf management that goes against science and ethical norms.”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams.  Published 8-12-2021

Wisconsin is set to hold its second wolf hunt of the year this fall.. Photo: Gunnar Ries/flickr/CC

Less than a year after a February wolf hunt condemned as “an outright slaughter,” conservation advocates are warning that the animals in Wisconsin are at risk of being wiped out after state officials voted Wednesday to approve a kill quota of 300 wolves for the fall 2021 hunting season—more than twice the number proposed by the state Department of Natural Resources.

The “harvest quota” was approved in a 5-2 vote at an in-person meeting of the Natural Resources Board. Continue reading →

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