For the 3 million Members and online activists of the Natural Resources Defense Council
Collared anteater and pup
NATURE WINS ON PUBLIC LANDS
The era of giving the VIP treatment to oil and gas drilling and other extractive industries on public lands is finally over. Under the new Public Lands Rule recently finalized by the Bureau of Land Management, the agency will now give no less priority to non-destructive uses such as recreation, wildlife, and conservation of nature across the more than 245 million acres of treasured public lands it manages. Says NRDC Senior Attorney Giulia C. S. Good Stefani, “This is a long-overdue course correction that puts the public back in public lands.”
Victory
VERMONT SHOWS BEES SOME LOVE
Just six months after New York passed a landmark law targeting neonic pesticides, Vermont has become the second state in the country to crack down on the widespread use of seeds coated with these beekilling, neurotoxic chemicals. A single neonic-coated corn seed contains enough active ingredient to kill a quarter million bees, and in most cases, 95 percent or more of the pesticide coating leaches into the environment to contaminate soil, water, native plants, and wildlife on a broad scale.
Victory
EPA TARGETS FOREVER CHEMICALS
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has restricted six toxic PFAS chemicals found in drinking water, the first time ever that the agency has cracked down on these ubiquitous “forever chemicals” in water. The move follows intense public advocacy by NRDC and our allies, including an outpouring of support for the agency’s long-overdue action from thousands of NRDC Members and online activists. Now the fight turns to defending the EPA’s lifesaving standards in federal court from an onslaught of litigation filed by the chemical industry and water utilities.
NRDC SEEKS TRADE BAN ON 200+ SPECIES
Mo re t han 200 of the world’s most imperiled wildlife species should be given the strongest level of protection under international law and have their commercial trade banned. That’s the message NRDC and our allies delivered to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently as the agency prepares to represent the United States at next year’s World Wildlife Conference. The conference brings together parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, the only international agreement with the aim of ensuring that the trade in plants and animals does not threaten their survival in the wild.
The species under consideration are either found in the United States or imported from other countries, and they represent a dazzling cross-section of the planet’s extraordinary biodiversity—from polar
bears, sea otters, and reindeer to aquarium fish, turtles, and sharks, as well as orchids and more than 50 coral species. They are nevertheless united in that they are all threatened with extinction, and that threat is being compounded by commercial trade. Whether through legal or illegal means, wildlife is harvested to satisfy increasing demand for everything from exotic pets and luxury goods to souvenirs, timber, and traditional medicine. Such direct exploitation of wild animals and plants is a leading driver of the global biodiversity crisis, especially in the Americas and Africa. Scientists warn that the current rate of species extinction is at least ten to hundreds of times higher than the average rate of the past 10 million years.
“We’re in a red-alert moment for the world’s wildlife,” says Zak Smith, director of global biodiversity conservation at NRDC. “The
biodiversity crisis demands that we use all the tools at our disposal, and that we go big and go bold now to save the species that need it most. We’re calling on the United States to lead this charge globally by ensuring that our own threatened species are protected from destructive for-profit international trade and by halting the import of species that are threatened with extinction from around the world.” The environmental campaigns and victories featured in Nature’s Voice are all made possible through your generous support.
You can help NRDC defend the environment by making a special contribution: NRDC.ORG/GIVE
New Bill Would Bar Mega-Mine in Bristol Bay
The world’s greatest wild salmon fishery has hooked a big ally on Capitol Hill. U.S. Representative Mary Sattler Peltola of Alaska has introduced legislation that would prohibit the Pebble Mine or any mega-mine like it from being built at critical headwaters of the spectacular Bristol Bay watershed. If passed, the bill would enshrine in federal law the safeguards issued last year by the EPA in its veto of the Pebble project, which would forever threaten Bristol Bay’s wild salmon runs with billions of tons of toxic mining waste. As if to underscore the importance of such legislation, Bristol Bay Indigenous communities,
backed by NRDC, are currently fighting in court to defend the EPA’s wilderness-saving protections from aggressive litigation filed by Pebble Mine’s corporate backer, Canadian mining company Northern Dynasty Minerals, and Alaska’s pro-mining governor. “For more than 20 years the people of Bristol Bay have been fighting to stop this reckless mega-mine, and they’re still fighting,” says NRDC Senior Attorney Joel Reynolds. “It’s crystal clear that without congressional action, the only thing certain for Bristol Bay’s future will continue to be the inevitable pressure for large-scale mining at its headwaters.”
Vulnerable disc corals are among the species NRDC is seeking to protect from commercial trade.
MEMBERS CHAMPION HISTORIC PROTECTIONS FOR WILD ARCTIC
Having s pent more than 20 years fighting to preserve and defend public lands, Bobby McEnaney knew full well that an opportunity like this doesn’t come along every day: The Interior Department under the Biden-Harris administration had just proposed maximum protections for more than 10 million acres of unspoiled nature in Alaska’s Arctic Reserve. The plan was historic. It aimed to put some of the Arctic’s most biodiverse wildlands off-limits to oil and gas leasing, including critical denning and feeding habitat for polar bears, the birthing ground for the Western Arctic Caribou Herd, vital calving area for endangered beluga whales, and nesting habitat for millions of migratory birds. “Never before in the Arctic Reserve has the Interior Department prioritized nature and the interests of local Indigenous communities over the interests of the oil and gas industry,” says McEnaney, director of land conservation in NRDC’s Nature program. No sooner had the Interior Department made its announcement, however, than the industry went into full-on attack mode, with its leading front group decrying the landmark protections as “misguided” and denouncing them as “a step in the wrong direction.” McEnaney and his team, including our coalition partners, swung into action, countering the industry’s misleading spin in the media and working to rally a groundswell of public support for the Interior Department’s plan. To date, tens of thousands of NRDC Members and online activists have joined in calling on the department to refuse to bow to oil industry pressure and to move quickly to finalize its nature-saving protections for the Arctic Reserve.
Among those on the forefront of the fight to secure those protections are Indigenous People such as Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, executive director
of Grandmothers Growing Goodness, an environmental justice group dedicated to protecting Iñupiat culture. “Our lands and waters are a beautiful place on the horizon,” she says, “and we have the bounty of renewal for every continent for our birds,” referring to the area’s unparalleled importance as migratory habitat for birds from as far away as New Zealand and Chile’s Tierra del Fuego. Ahtuangaruak and Indigenous Peoples like her are standing up in opposition to the oil industry’s century-long domination of the region to defend the Arctic’s life-giving natural places. Future generations need to rely on these places too, she adds, “as our elders showed us.”
More than 40 Indigenous communities depend on
the Western Arctic Caribou Herd, as they have since long before President Warren G. Harding signed an executive order designating much of the region a petroleum reserve for the Navy a hundred years ago.
In 1976, Congress transferred management of the reserve to the Interior Department and renamed it the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska, yet recognizing that this majestic, undeveloped landscape also held tremendous ecological and cultural significance, law-makers charged the agency with ensuring “maximum protection” of areas identified as having “any significant subsistence, recreational, fish and wildlife, or historical or scenic value.”
Nearly a half century later, such protections are
what the Interior Department has finally proposed for the five Special Areas located within the Arctic Reserve. That includes the 7-million-acre Utukok River Uplands, whose lush, expansive grasslands serve as the birthplace of the Western Arctic Caribou Herd. To the east, the Colville River corridor is home to moose, grizzly bears, and the densest population of wolves on Alaska’s northern coastal plain, in addition to hosting one of the highest concentrations of nesting areas for migrating raptors, such as peregrine falcons and golden eagles.
Among the other Special Areas poised for protection is Kasegaluk Lagoon, which spans 125
More than 10 million acres of Arctic wildlands could receive maximum protection.
miles of coast on the Chukchi Sea and is one of the largest unspoiled coastal lagoon systems in the world. Polar bear mothers teach their cubs to hunt here thanks to an abundant population of ice seals, while the waters offshore serve as vital calving area for endangered beluga whales. Farther along the coast in Peard Bay, more than a thousand freshwater “thaw lakes” provide essential staging and migration habitat for tens of thousands of shorebirds and waterfowl while seasonal migrations of bowhead whales pass just off the coast.
And then there’s Teshekpuk Lake. The lake itself is the largest in Alaska’s Arctic, but the Special Area that bears its name encompasses hundreds of thousands of acres of thriving wetlands that serve as nesting habitat for millions of migratory birds arriving from six continents. The coastal barrier islands provide
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Clockwise from top left: Vital habitat for threatened polar bears would be protected under the Biden administration’s plan; caribou of the Western Arctic Herd migrate through the Utukok River Uplands; yellow-billed loons are among the millions of migratory birds that rely on the Arctic Reserve’s Special Areas; the Colville River corridor is home to a vast array of Arctic wildlife, including the densest population of wolves on Alaska’s northern coastal plain.
denning grounds for polar bears, which have become even more vital as the threatened species faces climate-driven habitat loss elsewhere.
Indeed, the Interior Department’s proposed protections, which also include provisions to allow for the designation of additional Special Areas, come at a critical time for Arctic wildlife and the region’s Indigenous communities. Their home is warming four times as fast as the rest of the planet. In 2022, population numbers for the Western Arctic Caribou Herd hit their lowest point in 40 years, with climate change suspected as among the principal factors in the decline. “It’s a viciously cruel irony,” says McEnaney, “that the industry driving the climate crisis would continue to fight so hard to expand drilling in one of the very regions that is arguably suffering most from climate change.” As McEnaney points out, the 15 largest oil and gas companies operating in the United States raked in a staggering $172 billion in profit last year—the hottest year on record. And even as the industry assails the Biden administration’s historic move to prohibit leasing in Special Areas of the Arctic Reserve, it’s worth remembering that oil and gas companies already hold leases covering nearly 40 million acres of our public lands and oceans, an area larger than the state of Georgia. Put simply, McEnaney says, “They don’t need more.”
Glow Up! New Future for Old Power Plants
At long last, the nation’s biggest polluters are being told to clean up their act. New pollution standards released by the EPA for existing coal-fired power plants as well as new gas-fired ones will finally rein in eye-popping emissions a billion and a half tons each year of climate-warming carbon pollution. Separate rules reduce these plants’ toxic air pollution that causes heart attacks, lung disease, and other health harms, and restrict wastewater discharges of arsenic, mercury, and other pollutants that contaminate drinking water supplies.
NRDC Pushes for Tough Global Plastics Treaty
As the international community works to hammer out the first-ever global treaty aimed at tackling the plastics crisis, NRDC’s delegation will be heading to final negotiations in South Korea in November buoyed by a resounding show of support: more than 17,000 Members and online activists have joined NRDC in calling on the United States to back a strong treaty in defiance of immense corporate pressure.
“This is a huge win for our climate and for public health,” says David Doniger, senior attorney and strategist for NRDC’s Climate & Energy program. Together with the incentives from the landmark 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the new standards put the power sector on track to cut carbon emissions by a whopping 75 percent in 2035 from their peak three decades prior. Despite fearmongering from industry, Doniger points out that the rules have multiple layers of flexibility to ensure the reliability of electric systems while cutting dangerous pollution. “As we electrify vehicles, homes, and factories, it’s absolutely essential that we power this progress with carbon-free clean electricity.”
Flint Water Crisis: Beginning of the End?
Ten years after their fight to secure the basic right to clean drinking water began, fed-up residents of Flint, Michigan, are guardedly optimistic that the end may finally be near. In March, a federal court found the City of Flint in contempt for once again failing to meet certain milestones in its lead-pipe replacement program. Now the State of Michigan has stepped in and committed to finishing the remaining work by August 2025.
Under a landmark settlement reached in 2017 by Flint residents represented by attorneys from NRDC and the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, the city was
supposed to finish replacing lead service lines and restoring residents’ properties by January 2020, a deadline that was extended to September 2022 in the wake of the pandemic. Yet there remain about 1,900 homes that require repairs to fix damage caused by the pipe replacement program, and the city has still failed to check for lead service lines at hundreds of homes.
“We can be hopeful the end of the water crisis is near,” says Pastor Allen C. Overton with the grassroots Concerned Pastors for Social Action. “But we must and will stay vigilant.”
“We know what we’re up against,” says Senior Advisor David Lennett, who is leading NRDC’s delegation. Lennett has witnessed firsthand the industry’s aggressive campaign to try to scuttle effective action throughout the negotiations thus far. In contrast, NRDC and our allies are advocating for such tough provisions as mandatory reductions in plastic production, the removal of the most toxic chemicals from plastics, the elimination of hardto-recycle and other problematic plastic products, and full transparency from companies about which chemicals are in their plastics.
Indeed, in a world awash in plastic, relief can’t come soon enough. Global plastic production has skyrocketed to more than 460 million metric tons. Much of this plastic quickly becomes waste, and plastic waste is found everywhere, from the farthest reaches of the Arctic to the deep seabed, and even in clouds and the atmosphere. “The time to act is now,” says Lennett.
residents protest unsafe drinking water
Good Catch: 5 Smart Tips for Buying Sustainable Fish and Shellfish
It seems as if every day there’s a new headline touting the health benefits of incorporating more seafood into your diet only to be followed in your news feed by yet another headline warning about the perilous state of the world’s oceans. To be sure, overfishing has taken a tremendous toll on marine biodiversity, while outsize threats such as climate change and the plastic waste crisis demand action on a global scale. But as NRDC’s popular seafood buying guide demonstrates, you can have your fish and eat it, too. Here are five tips to keep in mind to help you make the best choices.
1. Buy U.S.-caught seafood. As much as a third of imported seafood sold in the United States is harvested through illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. And even though not all U.S. fisheries are managed to adequately ensure the overall health of ocean ecosystems, a good general rule is to seek out fish caught sustainably in U.S. waters. The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch is an excellent place to start your search. Keep an eye out for their “Best Choices.”
2. Its Diversify! Americans opt predominantly for the same five types of seafood: shrimp, salmon, canned tuna, tilapia, and pollock. Such high demand on only a handful of species can lead to overfishing and other environmental harms. Consider casting a wider net for other delicious species currently abundant in U.S. waters. Mussels, anyone?
3. Think small. Smaller fry, such as sardines, anchovies, and scallops, are less likely to contain higher concentrations of the dangerous neurotoxin mercury than larger fish, such as tuna and swordfish.
4. Eat local. You’ve no doubt heard about communitysupported agriculture, or CSAs. But did you know that there are also community-supported fisheries that operate much the same way? Visit localcatch.org to find a CSF in your area.
5. When in doubt, ask. By simply asking if a store or restaurant offers sustainable seafood, you can help shape demand for fish that has been caught or farmed in environmentally responsible ways.
For NRDC’s most recently updated guide, including helpful links and tips on how to spot meaningless “sustainability” claims at the seafood counter, visit nrdc.org/seafoodguide
Investigation Unravels Big Oil’s Web of Lies
By Zanagee Artis, Fossil Fuels Policy Advocate
The fossil fuel industry has never been part of the solution to the climate crisis, and new documents uncovered by a twoyear congressional investigation make that abundantly clear. The investigators’ report provides explosive details on what the subsequent Senate committee hearing described as decades of “denial, disinformation, and doublespeak” by the industry surrounding climate change.
For starters, Big Oil knew. In 1959, nuclear scientist Edward Teller explained to a symposium hosted by the American Petroleum Institute that carbon dioxide emissions from burning oil would melt ice caps and raise sea levels. The industry later engaged in its own climate research, and in 1979 Exxon
admitted that “the present trends of fossil fuel combustion [. . .] will lead to dramatic world climate changes within the next 75 years.”
Yet in the decades that followed, Exxon and its peers have bankrolled aggressive lobbying and marketing campaigns to convince lawmakers and the public that the science behind climate change is not certain.
Meanwhile, the oil giants have been actively deceiving the public about their commitment to achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and net zero emissions by 2050. Internal documents reveal that BP went so far as to say that “no one is committed to anything other than staying in the game” the “game” being the development and production of fossil fuels that they
know are devastating communities and the climate. Earlier this year, BP announced that it would increase oil and gas production from 2024 through 2027.
There’s so much more, from the industry’s shameless efforts to portray climate-busting methane gas (a.k.a. “natural” gas) as a “friend to renewables” to the hundreds of millions of dollars in dark money that the oil giants have poured into academic research programs. The oil industry lied for decades, and they are still lying. As one committee witness put it, “Big Oil is, frankly, the new Big Tobacco.” It’s past time for the industry to be held accountable for its role in destroying communities, ecosystems, and our climate.
