Tag Archives: Utah

60% of US Oil and Gas Infrastructure Now Protected by Anti-Protest Laws: Greenpeace

Fossil fuel companies have contributed millions of dollars to legislators who sponsored such laws, according to a new report.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 10-25-2023 by Common Dreams

*Photo: Joe Brusky/Overpass Light Brigade/flickr/cc*

In the seven years since the massive protests against the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock, the fossil fuel industry and their allies in politics and law enforcement have been hard at work to prevent a repeat: Around 60% of oil and gas infrastructure in the U.S. is now shielded by anti-protest laws that make direct action much riskier for activists and frontline communities who want to protect their local and global home from dangerous pollution, a new Greenpeace report has found.

The report, Dollars vs. Democracy 2023: Inside the Fossil Fuel Industry’s Playbook to Suppress Protest and Dissent in the United States, reveals that fossil fuel companies made up nine of the 10 most determined lobbyists for anti-protest measures since 2017 and that 25 oil, gas, coal, and energy companies contributed more than $5 million to legislators who sponsored these laws.

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US Appeals Courts Halts ‘Climate Bomb’ Oil Rail Project Over Environmental Concerns

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“This is an enormous victory for our shared climate, the Colorado River and the communities that rely on it for clean water, abundant fish and recreation,” said one campaigner.

By Jessica Corbett Published 8-18-2023 by Common Dreams

Oil and gas fields along the proposed route. Map: Uinta Basin Railway

U.S. Green groups and some Democratic politicians on Friday celebrated a federal appellate court’s ruling that pauses the development of the Uinta Basin Railway, a project that would connect Utah’s oil fields to the national railway network.

“The court’s rejection of this oil railway and its ensuing environmental damage is a victory for the climate, public health, and wild landscapes,” said WildEarth Guardians legal director Samantha Ruscavage-Barz. “The public shouldn’t have to shoulder the costs of the railway’s environmental degradation while the fossil fuel industry reaps unprecedented profits from dirty energy.”

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Montana Train Derailment Raises Fears of Similar Disasters on Proposed Uinta Basin Railway

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The Stillwater County, Montana sheriff’s office said it was a “great stroke of luck” that none of the train cars were carrying oil that would have polluted the Yellowstone River.

By Julia Conley Published 6-25-2023 by Common Dreams

A freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed on a bridge in Stillwater County, Montana on June 25, 2023. (Photo: @MontanaFWP/Twitter)

A freight train derailment and the collapse of a bridge over the Yellowstone River in Montana on Saturday raised alarm as several cars carrying asphalt and molten sulfur tumbled into the river, prompting officials to take emergency measures at nearby water plants.

The incident also brought to mind for some critics the Biden administration’s plan to move forward with a railway project along the Colorado River—one that could place the drinking water of 40 million people at risk as trains transport crude oil from eastern Utah’s Uinta Basin to national rail lines.

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GOP Utah Gov. Signs Ban on ‘Lifesaving Medical Care’ for Trans Youth

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“It undermines the health and well-being of adolescents, limits the options of doctors, patients, and parents, and violates the constitutional rights of these families,” the ACLU of Utah’s executive director.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 1-28-2023 by Common Dreams.

We Won’t Be Erased – Rally for Trans Rights, Washington, DC on 10-22-2018 Photo: Ted Eytan/flickr/CC

Defying the guidance of the nation’s leading medical organizations, Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Saturday signed into law a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors in the state.

Passed by the Utah House of Representatives on Thursday and the state Senate on Friday, S.B. 16 prohibits gender-affirming surgeries for trans youth and bars hormonal treatment for new patients who were not diagnosed with gender dysphoria before the bill’s effective date, May 3. Continue reading →

Researchers Warn Great Salt Lake’s Retreat Threatens Crucial Ecosystem, Public Health

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“The lake’s ecosystem is not only on the edge of collapse. It is collapsing,” said one ecologist.

By Julia Conley. Published 1-7-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: Save Our Great Salt Lake/Facebook

Scientists are warning Utah officials that the Great Salt Lake is shrinking far faster than experts previously believed, and calling for a major reduction in water consumption across the American West in order to prevent the lake from disappearing in the next five years.

Researchers at Brigham Young University (BYU) led more than 30 scientists from 11 universities and advocacy groups in a report released this week showing that the lake is currently at 37% of its former volume, with its rapid retreat driven by the historic drought that’s continuing across the West. Continue reading →

Surveillance is pervasive: Yes, you are being watched, even if no one is looking for you

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*Video cameras on city streets are only the most visible way your movements can be tracked.*
*AP Photo/Mel Evans*

Peter Krapp, University of California, Irvine

The U.S. has the largest number of surveillance cameras per person in the world. Cameras are omnipresent on city streets and in hotels, restaurants, malls and offices. They’re also used to screen passengers for the Transportation Security Administration. And then there are smart doorbells and other home security cameras.

Most Americans are aware of video surveillance of public spaces. Likewise, most people know about online tracking – and want Congress to do something about it. But as a researcher who studies digital culture and secret communications, I believe that to understand how pervasive surveillance is, it’s important to recognize how physical and digital tracking work together. Continue reading →

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 →

Crackdown in the statehouse: Lawmakers edge out press access

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The Iowa Senate Chamber. Photo: Miles530 /Public Domain

By Parker Higgins Published 2-4-2022 by Freedom of the Press Foundation

In a growing number of state legislatures across the country, journalists are facing new rules and proposed legislation that breaks with traditions of public access to legislators. These moves are a troubling development in the increasingly rocky relationship between government officials and the press that covers them, and should be rolled back and opposed wherever possible.

Two recent shifts were highlighted in this month’s U.S. Press Freedom Tracker newsletter. In the Iowa and Kansas senates — both controlled by Republicans — legislators announced that journalists would no longer be allowed on the floor, and instead moved to a public gallery. In each case, lawmakers cited practical concerns and downplayed the First Amendment implications, but the effect has been to diminish the ability for journalists to effectively cover legislative action. Continue reading →

Indigenous Leaders Hail Biden’s Proposed Chaco Canyon Drilling Ban as ‘Important First Step’

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“We are most hopeful that this action is a turning point where the United States natural resource management planning philosophy focuses on the protection of all living beings.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 11-15-2021 by Common Dreams

Deb Haaland—then a Democratic congresswoman representing New Mexico’s First District but now U.S. interior secretary—visits Chaco Canyon in 2019. (Photo: Monica Sanchez/Natural Resources Democrats/Flickr/cc)

A coalition of Southwestern Indigenous leaders on Monday applauded President Joe Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland following the announcement of a proposed 20-year fossil fuel drilling ban around the sacred Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico—even as the administration prepares to auction off tens of millions of acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas extraction later this week.

“Chaco Canyon is a sacred place that holds deep meaning for the Indigenous peoples whose ancestors lived, worked, and thrived in that high desert community,” Haaland—the first Native American Cabinet secretary in U.S. history—said in a statement Monday. Continue reading →

Oregon’s Growing Bootleg Fire is One of 70 Now Raging in US West, Where Another Heatwave Looms

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“We are living through a climate catastrophe,” said Rep. Jamaal Bowman. “We have to redesign our economy to respond to the current crisis and to ensure it doesn’t get much, much worse.”

By Kenny Stancil, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 7-17-2021

The Bootleg Fire – July 10,2021. Photo: Zach Urness/Twitter

Bolstering the case for meaningful action to address the climate emergency, the out-of-control Bootleg Fire that began on July 6 in southern Oregon has scorched more than 280,000 acres and is only 22% contained. It is the nation’s largest wildfire so far this year, and one of 70 large blazes currently torching the U.S. West, which is bracing for yet another heatwave.

To put Bootleg’s destructiveness into perspective, the fire—one of 10 burning in Oregon alone—has spread over 25,000 acres per day on average, or more than 1,000 acres every hour. According to CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller, “That’s an area larger than the area of Central Park each hour, or a rate of a football field burned every five seconds” for 11 days. Continue reading →

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The Movement Continues – Globally

Tag Archives: Utah

Montana Train Derailment Raises Fears of Similar Disasters on Proposed Uinta Basin Railway

The Stillwater County, Montana sheriff’s office said it was a “great stroke of luck” that none of the train cars were carrying oil that would have polluted the Yellowstone River.

Researchers Warn Great Salt Lake’s Retreat Threatens Crucial Ecosystem, Public Health

“The lake’s ecosystem is not only on the edge of collapse. It is collapsing,” said one ecologist.

Surveillance is pervasive: Yes, you are being watched, even if no one is looking for you

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

“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.”

Oregon’s Growing Bootleg Fire is One of 70 Now Raging in US West, Where Another Heatwave Looms

“We are living through a climate catastrophe,” said Rep. Jamaal Bowman. “We have to redesign our economy to respond to the current crisis and to ensure it doesn’t get much, much worse.”