Nature's Voice Spring 2019

SPRING 2019

’ NATURE SVOICE For the 3 million Members and online activists of the Natural Resources Defense Council

IN THIS ISSUE

The Arctic Refuge is our nation’s largest denning ground for polar bears.

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on the Brink Court Blocks Construction of Keystone XL Climate Action: The World Isn't Waiting on Trump NRDC Goes to Court to Stop Seismic Blasting

NRDC works to safeguard the earth—its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends.

Victory

INDUSTRY PAL ZINKE IS OUT

After a tumultuous two years of pro-polluter giveaways and continual scandal, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has resigned. NRDC had launched an aggressive campaign calling for his ousting—pointing to his multiplying ethics investigations and dangerous industry-first bias. The campaign helped ramp up public pressure and expose Zinke’s most egregious actions, like shrinking our national monuments, opening up the Arctic Refuge to drilling and packing a so-called Wildlife Conservation Council with trophy hunting enthusiasts. NRDC is fighting those moves in court—before they can stick.

Victory

COURT PROTECTS ELEPHANTS

A California court of appeals has upheld the state’s ban on buying, selling and importing ivory, a law aimed at protecting elephants from poaching abroad.

NRDC helped pass the original law in 2015 and has continued to assist in defending it from challenges by a prominent ivory collector that began later that year.

Under the ban, California has increased enforcement against traffickers and begun to tackle the state’s once-flourishing ivory market. The latest win is good news for elephants, whose populations continue to suffer due to hunting and habitat loss.

Victory

DRILLING PLANS HALTED

In a lawsuit brought by NRDC and our partners, a federal judge has rejected a plan by the Trump Administration to expand oil and gas drilling on public lands across Colorado’s western slope. The court found that the government had failed to consider the climate impacts of oil and gas leasing and development and to weigh reasonable alternatives. The win reiterates the administration’s legal obligation to analyze and disclose the real-world impacts of the greenhouse gas emissions that would result from its rush to boost drilling on public lands.

C OV E R A RT I C L E

ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE ON THE BRINK

A

s it races to implement President Trump’s extreme fossil fuel agenda, the Interior Department is barreling ahead with plans to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas drilling. The move threatens to despoil the largest remaining pristine expanse of American wilderness and to imperil its magnificent array of wildlife, including polar bears, wolves, Arctic foxes, eagles and caribou.

With a bevy of fossil fuel insiders and other industry allies now in charge, the Interior Department has dramatically accelerated its process to rubber-stamp approval for seismic exploration in the refuge, with the goal of auctioning off drilling leases within the next few months. The agency has stifled public debate and limited scientific input, including from its own scientists, who in some cases were given just 48 hours to provide expert comment on draft environmental reviews.

In a one-two punch to our Arctic natural heritage, the administration is also moving rapidly to open up the Beaufort Sea off the coast of the Arctic Refuge to oil and gas development.

Trump’s Arctic oil rush poses a grave threat to the region’s declining population of polar bears, already struggling to survive amid the devastating loss of sea ice and other dire effects of climate change. Convoys of 30-ton “thumper” trucks, which send seismic tremors through the landscape, would ply the coastal plain of the refuge in winter, threatening to disturb nursing polar bear mothers in their dens or even crush their cubs. Were drilling to begin, the danger of an oil spill would be ever present; such a spill would almost certainly be a death sentence for any bear caught in an oil slick.

“Given the Arctic’s extreme conditions, the question when it comes to drilling is not if but when there’s going to be a spill,” says NRDC Alaska

Director Niel Lawrence. “We’ve defended the Arctic Refuge for more than 30 years, and we’re fully prepared to haul this administration into court if that’s what it takes to repel this latest attack.”

POLAR BEARS © DANITA DELIMONT/ALAMY; KXL PROTEST © B CHRISTOPHER/ALAMY

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Court Blocks Construction of Keystone XL Siding with NRDC and our allies in a dramatic courtroom showdown, a federal court has rejected the latest effort in the Trump Administration’s relentless drive to resurrect the destructive Keystone XL pipeline. The ruling marks a major blow to the administration’s zealous embrace of the world’s dirtiest fossil fuels as well as its often flagrant disregard for our country’s bedrock environmental laws. Specifically, the court found that the Trump Administration had acted illegally when it summarily reversed the Obama-era decision to reject the massive pipeline, which would carry 830,000 barrels of climate-wrecking tar-sands oil each day from Canada through

the American heartland. The court blocked construction on the project and ordered an extensive new review.

The administration essentially ignored the pipeline’s potentially devastating impact on our climate and environment, echoing a pattern in which, time and again, it has tried to ram through pro-polluter policies by breaking the law. “Keystone XL cannot be built unless and until the Trump Administration complies with the law. So far, we’ve seen no indication that it plans to do so,” says NRDC Senior Attorney Jackie Prange.

“The court’s decision is one more victory for the rule of law over President Trump’s reckless anti-environment agenda.”

CA M PA I G N U P DAT E

CLIMATE ACTION: THE WORLD CAN’T WAIT—AND ISN’T WAITING—ON TRUMP

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to roll back Obama-era plans to dramatically reduce carbon emissions from power plants and automobiles.

But for those who find themselves despairing at the Trump Administration’s head-in-the-sand approach to the climate crisis, Roland Hwang, managing director of NRDC’s Climate & Clean Energy program, has some advice: Look beyond Washing­ton. “When it comes to climate change, the good news is that we know what we need to do—focus on the big, proven

“When it comes to climate change, the good news is we know what we need to do.”

Clockwise from top left: Tropical Storm Irma, Charleston, South Carolina, 2017; Delta Fire, Shasta-Trinity National Forest, California, 2018; a solar thermal power station in Nevada; Spring Valley Wind Farm, Ely, Nevada

transparent system to hold countries to their emissions reduction commitments.

Despite the Trump Administration’s embarrassing attempts to tout the so-called benefits of fossil fuels, the summit also demonstrated the powerful spirit of resolve that’s sweeping across the United States in defiance of the president. NRDC joined with state and local officials and other advocacy groups to form an unofficial delegation that dwarfed the one sent by the Trump Administration. For example, as the pro-fossil-fuel presentation by one Trump official was being drowned out by chants

of “Shame on you!” the alternate U.S. delegation was hosting events featuring leaders like Bill Peduto, mayor of Pittsburgh, a city once synonymous with coal that has pledged to get 100 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2035.

Back in the United States, NRDC continues waging multiple courtroom battles aimed at beating back Trump’s reckless fossil fuel agenda. And we’re working to prevail on the new pro-environment majority in the House to promote a green economy and use its authority to investigate the administration’s derelict response to climate change, such as its attempts

clean energy solutions that are already delivering results,” says Hwang, noting that carbon emissions in the U.S. electric power sector have fallen by 28 percent over the past decade. “We’ve spent years laying the groundwork, whether it’s advocating for advances in energy efficiency and renewable energy or for smarter, more sustainable transportation systems.

That work is paying off at the state and local levels, where we are confronting climate change head-on.”

Dramatic advances in wind and solar technology, for example, have caused the cost of renewable energy to plunge by more than 70 percent in just 10 years. That has made it possible for cities and states to lead the charge toward a clean energy future.

Nevada voters backed an NRDC-endorsed referendum that requires 50 percent of the state’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2030. Illinois voters elected a governor who has pledged to transition the state to 100 percent clean energy by 2050.

[Continued on next page.]

STORM © MIC SMITH/AP PHOTO; FIRE © NOAH BERGER/AP PHOTO; SOLAR POWER © FERRAN TRAITE/ISTOCK; WIND FARM © JEREMY NIXON/ALAMY

hen delegates from almost 200 coun­ tries gathered in Katowice, Poland, in Decem­ber for a major United Nations climate summit, the stakes could hardly have been higher. Just two months before, the U.N.’s Interna­ tional Panel on Climate Change had issued a dire new report warning that we are already experiencing the impacts of climate change and that unless countries act swiftly to rein in carbon emissions, the world will face a climate catastrophe.

The report alone might have been enough to cast a pall over the delegates’ task of hashing out a set of rules to implement the landmark Paris climate agreement of 2015, which the United States had taken a lead role in negotiating. Now the federal government of the world’s second-largest carbon polluter was in the grip of perhaps the world’s most notorious climate denier: Donald Trump. His rejection of climate science has not wavered in the face of his administration’s own recent alarming climate report nor a spate of climate-fueled natural disasters, including two powerful hurricanes and the most destructive wildfires in California history.

Yet when Jake Schmidt, managing director of NRDC’s International program and a 15-year veteran of U.N. climate talks, arrived in Poland, he found the mood was far from grim.

“There’s a clear sense of urgency, but there’s also optimism based on the progress that’s already being made toward cleaner energy and other climate solutions,” says Schmidt. “Don’t get me wrong; there’s a big difference when the United States is not leading but is instead aligning itself with countries like Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to downplay the latest climate science. But one of the key takeaways from the success we achieved in Poland is that the world isn’t waiting on Trump.”

Capitalizing on relationships forged over a decade or more working with countries like China, India and those in Latin America, the NRDC delegation helped push for a strong set of rules to drive the Paris agreement forward, including a common,

Court Win Protects Free Speech, Activism

And while California’s commitment to achieve the same goal by 2045 might not come as a surprise, the clean energy revolution appears poised to transform unexpected places as well. For instance, NRDC is working with a grassroots coalition to advocate for a 400-megawatt solar energy farm proposed for the Appalachian region of Ohio. The project would make the state a solar energy leader in the Midwest and bring 4,000 jobs to an area long reliant on coal.

No less impressive has been the progress toward greater energy efficiency. In 2017 America’s public utilities invested more than $7.8 billion in energy efficiency programs, and 2018 saw substantial commitments as well: States like Virginia and New York each unveiled plans to spend $1 billion or more on such programs, and Pennsylvania adopted revised building codes that will make new construction 25 percent more energy efficient.

In other big climate news, a coalition of nine Northeast and mid-Atlantic states and Washington, D.C., have come together to fast-track a plan to develop cleaner transportation systems for one of the most heavily populated regions of the country.

The initiative, strongly supported by NRDC, aims to dramatically reduce transportation-related carbon emissions while creating better transportation options for all communities and could serve as a model for other regions. “If 2018 felt like the year when climate change became impossible to ignore,” says Hwang, “we’re working hard to tip the fight toward hope over despair.”

Atlantic spotted dolphins

NRDC Goes to Court to Stop Seismic Blasting NRDC and our partners have sued the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service for issuing five new permits that allow seismic blasting in the Atlantic from Delaware to Florida. A first step toward offshore drilling, seismic blasting uses deafening air guns to search for oil and gas reserves under the ocean floor. Akin to dynamite explosions, the underwater booms—occurring every 10 seconds for weeks or months on end—will harm hundreds of thousands of marine mammals that rely largely on sound to find food, mate and navigate the sea. Scientists have warned that seismic blasting alone will push some critically endangered species, like the

Sage Grouse Lose Out to Big Oil and Gas

Sage grouse

Bowing to the fossil fuel industry, the Trump Administration has moved to throw out a landmark conservation plan to protect the greater sage grouse, an iconic western bird. The Interior Department proposed sacrificing critical sagebrush habitat across multiple western states to boost industrial activity like oil and gas drilling and mining. A keystone species, the spiny-feathered bird once numbered 16 million, its range stretching from Alberta, Canada, to Arizona. But because of habitat fragmentation, wildfires and invasive weeds, only an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 remain.

North Atlantic right whale, closer to extinction.

Michael Jasny, the director of NRDC’s Marine Mammal Protection Project, says the practice clearly violates bedrock environmental laws like the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. “It’s essentially a license for companies to kill marine life and harm our oceans,” Jasny says. “And it’s all part of an irresponsible quest for more fossil fuels that speed up climate change.”

The Obama Administration had agreed with NRDC’s position, denying similar permits just before leaving office.

But the Trump Administration reversed course, pursuing aggressive plans to open up America’s coastal waters to drilling and the seismic testing that precedes it. “It’s reckless. It’s illegal. And we’re going to fight it,” Jasny says.

The 2015 plan, advocated by NRDC, was the culmination of years of talks among states, ranchers, conservationists and public officials. By protecting the sage grouse, the plan also helps protect the 350 other species that depend on healthy sagebrush habitat—like elk, mule deer, pronghorn and golden eagles. “The reversal has no basis in science. It’s a bald-faced giveaway to the oil and gas industry,” says Bobby McEnaney, senior director of NRDC’s Western Renewable Energy Project. This is hardly surprising: Trump’s Interior Department has sought to shrink monuments, weaken wildlife protections and open our coasts to drilling, all for the sake of boosting polluters’ profits.

Siding with NRDC and our partners, a federal district judge has ruled Wyoming’s “data trespass” laws are unconstitutional—a win for both environmental advocacy and free speech. The laws threatened harsh civil penalties and even jail time if anyone crossed private lands, even accidentally, while gathering data on things like pollution levels or illegal hunting practices. With the state’s patchwork of public and private land, often with unmarked boundaries, it effectively banned citizen-led investigations into potential environmental misconduct.

“The state tried to criminalize environmental advocacy,” says NRDC Litigation Director Michael Wall. “That’s un-American. And as the federal court ruled, it violates our First Amendment rights.”

Cousins of infamous “ag gag” laws that prohibit so much as taking photos of factory farms, the Wyoming laws impeded inves­ti­gations that have, in the past, found evidence of health code, environmental and labor violations. NRDC itself had to cancel a multiyear air pollution study in Wyoming’s oil and gas fields due to the increased risk of jail time and penalties. As the judge concluded, the laws’ intentions were clear from the get-go: an “attempt to punish individuals for engaging in protected speech that at least some find unpleasant.”

Photographer in Yellowstone National Park

SAGE GROUSE © JEANNIE STAFFORD/USFWS; DOLPHINS © RODRIGO FISCIONE/CORBIS; YELLOWSTONE © JULIA CHRISTE/ALAMY

[Continued from previous page.]

NRDC wildlife advocates are gearing up to head to Sri Lanka in May for the 18th Conference of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the largest treaty dedicated to protecting vulnerable species around the world from unsustainable trade. Delegates from more than 180 nations convene every two or three years and often face intense pressure from trophy hunters, pet traders and other special interests to limit or reverse animal protections. Strong advocacy by NRDC and other conservation groups has proved critical in driving con-

certed international action to save species imperiled by trade.

At this year’s conference, we will continue defending hard-won protections for elephants and rhinos as part of our ongoing campaign to shut down the global trade in ivory and rhino horn, which has fueled a poaching frenzy in Africa. We are also ramping up efforts to secure new protections for Africa’s giraffes, whose populations have declined by 40 percent over the past 30 years in what experts call a “silent extinction” due to lack of public awareness.

“CITES is a vital forum for

Asian small-clawed otters

focusing international attention and action, especially when it comes to wildlife crises that aren’t making headlines,” says Elly Pepper, deputy director of NRDC’s Wildlife Trade program.

Pepper points to the success of the campaign to save the pangolin, a scaly anteater lookalike that is little known in the West but ranks as the most trafficked animal in the world owing to beliefs in its native Africa and Asia about the animal’s supposed medicinal qualities. At the last CITES conference, NRDC helped win a total ban on the international commercial trade in pangolins.

Now we’re working to galvanize CITES nations to take action in the face of another unfolding crisis: the loss of the world’s otters. Both river and marine species of otters around the globe are declining due to numerous threats, ranging from habitat loss and pollution to overhunting and poaching.

Tropical Asian otters are faring the worst, in part because of an emerging online trade. “We’ve seen an alarming trend on social media of otters and otter pups being kept as pets,” says Pepper. “At this year’s conference, we’ll be leading the fight to give Asian otters the protections they desperately need.”

EPA Moves to Weaken Mercury Standards

By John Walke, Director, Clean Air, Climate and Clean Energy program

In its latest attack on clean air safeguards, the Environmental Protection Agency released its new proposal to undermine the Obamaera Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), putting public health at risk from more than 80 dangerous pollutants, some of which are known to cause brain damage in children. It’s an unconscionable rollback that serves the coal industry at the expense of all Americans, especially our youngest and most vulnerable. Apparently, the EPA is just fine with allowing brain poisons and carcinogens to fill our skies.

These standards were the first national limits on toxic air pollution—like mercury, arsenic, lead and acid gases—from coal-fired power plants. Among those, mer-

cury is especially toxic, especially for pregnant women and their babies. The stakes are high: Each year, the standards prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths, 13,000 asthma attacks and nearly 5,000 heart attacks. In fact, MATS delivers up to $90 billion in annual health benefits. Nearly everyone supports the standards—including utilities that have already invested billions for pollution-control equipment and are complying with the rules at nearly every coal- and oilburning power plant in the country.

Even Congress is showing bipartisan opposition to a rollback. The standards’ few opponents include coal and industry executives. In particular, coal tycoon Bob Murray, the head of Murray Energy, has

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long been pushing for a rollback.

Murray has financial ties to the Trump campaign and is a former client of the EPA’s acting head, Andrew Wheeler.

The attack on MATS follows other rollbacks by the agency that will harm public health and attempt to undo Obama-era climate actions—like the decision to undo fuel efficiency standards and the gutting of the Clean Power Plan. The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards represent the most important action to clean up air pollution from dirty coal-burning power plants since the Clean Air Act was last updated in 1990. Weakening them is absurd and dangerous, and NRDC will fight to stop it with every tool at our disposal.

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Fate of Otters, Elephants and Giraffes at Stake During Global Summit

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