EPA VETOES PEBBLE MINE IN ALASKA
In a tremendous victory for local Indigenous communities and their allies, including millions of NDRC Members and online activists, the EPA has blocked development of the Pebble Mine in Alaska, dealing a likely fatal blow to the proposed wilderness-wrecking mega-mine. The move, which comes following a comprehensive scientific assessment and more than 12 years of agency review, is aimed at protecting the spectacular Bristol Bay watershed and its world-class runs of wild salmon from being sacrificed for what would be one of the world’s largest open-pit copper and gold mines.
“This is an existential win,” says NRDC Western Director Joel Reynolds, “for local advocacy over corporate might, for science over politics, for salmon over greed. The mining industry thought it could steamroll the people of Bristol Bay, but time and again, it has learned otherwise.”
As if to underscore just how much is at stake, last summer more than 78 million salmon returned
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to Bristol Bay, the most ever recorded. The salmon support a stunning array of wildlife and a $2.2 billion sustainable fishery that provides 15,000 jobs and more than half the world’s sockeye salmon. Yet the Pebble Mine, which would generate billions of tons of toxic mining waste, would forever imperil this thriving natural ecosystem with environmental catastrophe. Overwhelming opposition from Bristol Bay’s Indigenous communities has fueled the campaign to block the mine for almost two decades, while NRDC Members and online activists have steadfastly supported their fight, deluging the mine’s developers in protests and sending hundreds of thousands of petitions and formal comment letters to federal agencies demanding permanent protection of this irreplaceable wilderness gem.
Even as Bristol Bay’s tribal-led coalition has succeeded in driving a parade of multinational mining companies from the project, the mine’s sole remaining owner, Canada’s Northern Dynasty Minerals, has
made clear that it is planning an aggressive legal campaign to keep its destructive mining scheme alive. To that Reynolds says, “We’ll see you in court.”
Tenacity Wins Out in Fight for Maine River
A hard-won court settlement some 22 years in the making will no doubt go down as a landmark in holding corporate polluters accountable. The world was still grappling with Y2K when NRDC and the Maine People’s Alliance hauled Mallinckrodt into court, fighting to do what state and federal agencies hadn’t, which was to force the company to take responsibility for cleaning up the Penobscot River. Mallinckrodt owned a chemical facility that previously had dumped tons of toxic mercury into the river, just above some of Maine’s most productive fisheries. Yet it wasn’t until we filed suit that
the company was compelled to address that toxic legacy, first by funding an independent scientific study that found alarming levels of mercury contamination throughout the river estuary, which prompted the state to close portions of its lobster fishery.
“Mallinckrodt still dug in its heels,” says Mitch Bernard, who led our legal team and is now NRDC’s chief counsel. “We simply refused to give up.” That tenacity paid off. The recently approved court settlement requires Mallinckrodt to spend a minimum $187 million to clean up the river, one of the largest environmental cleanups in state history.
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BROWN BEAR © PAUL SOUDERS/GETTY IMAGES; PENOBSCOT RIVER © ISTOCK
Penobscot River, Maine
Brown bears are among the many animals that rely on Bristol Bay’s bounty of wild salmon.
BIG OIL’S LAND GRAB IMPERILS PUSH FOR BOLD CLIMATE ACTION
Without a doubt, the passage last year of the Inflation Reduction Act—the boldest, most-far reaching effort to date by the United States to tackle the climate crisis—was cause for celebration. “I don’t think you can overstate its importance,” says Kit Kennedy, managing director of NRDC’s Climate & Clean Energy Program. “This is the strongest climate action the U.S. has ever taken, at the moment when we need it most.”
At NRDC, the dozens of scientific, legal, and policy experts who had long been advocating for swingfor-the-fence federal climate action quickly shifted gears after the act’s passage and have been working feverishly to ensure the landmark legislation delivers on its game-changing potential. The 10-year, $369 billion investment in accelerating the transition to clean energy is poised to drive down U.S. greenhouse gas emissions as much as 40 percent below 2005 levels by decade’s end, which is critical to keeping temperatures from rising more than the dangerous threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius.
What’s more, the ripple effects of the bill’s historic investments—if they’re implemented effectively— stand to be exponential. For example, transitioning away from fossil fuels cuts not only climate pollution but other toxic emissions that kill an estimated 350,000 Americans every year. More climate-friendly farming also fosters biodiversity and helps heal nature. A robust green economy creates countless high-quality jobs, reduces global dependence on the oil and gas controlled by belligerent petro states, and addresses the environmental injustices of the fossil fuel era that force communities of color and Indigenous communities to shoulder a disproportionate burden of the industry’s destruction and pollution. But even as the legislation seems to herald the dawn of a new era, lurking in its fine print are a few alarming provisions that threaten to sabotage its climate promises and keep us stuck in the past. “A climate bill with handouts for the fossil fuel industry: It’s like taking on smoking by subsidizing the tobacco industry,” says Bobby McEnaney, director
of NRDC’s Dirty Energy Project. Among other industry giveaways that Big Oil’s army of lobbyists managed to squeeze into the law is a “hostage” provision that bars the Interior Department from approving leases for new clean energy projects without also doling out more leases for oil and gas drilling on public lands and in coastal waters. The bill also attempts to force lease sales that the department previously canceled, including the auction of nearly a million acres in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, home to numerous imperiled species including critically endangered beluga whales.
As NRDC and our allies moved swiftly to challenge that lease sale in court, the Interior Department was
moving forward with plans for two huge lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico this spring and preparing to auction off more than 660,000 acres of public land in Wyoming, Utah, Montana, and other states. In response to NRDC’s call to action, tens of thousands of Members and online activists have petitioned President Biden to stop his Interior Department from handing over more of our natural treasures to the climate-wrecking fossil fuel industry. (You can make your voice heard too! See Take Action, on next page.) “Even with the hostage provision, the president has the discretion and authority, under law, to restrict future leasing,” McEnaney says.
The fact that the industry is already sitting on
9,000 approved drilling permits, on leases covering some 24 million acres of public land, means its campaign to get its hands on more federal leases has nothing to do with producing more oil and gas today, much less stabilizing energy prices for consumers. Indeed, the market volatility that followed Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, including the sky-high spikes in gasoline prices last year, sent industry profits soaring. ExxonMobil and Chevron, the two biggest U.S. oil companies, raked in a record-breaking $92 billion in profit in 2022, an average of more than $250 million a day. As the oil giants lavish their shareholders with hefty dividends and stock buybacks, they continue to spend
big on lobbying and on supporting scores of industry front groups devoted to sowing disinformation about climate science and stalling climate action.
(A top executive at one such group, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, smugly tweeted last Thanksgiving, “Today, I’m thankful to live a highcarbon lifestyle and wish the rest of the world could too.”)
“Why would the oil giants want to bring down
WYOMING © JAMES KEITH/GETTY IMAGES; ENGINEER/SOLAR PANELS © CHANIN NONT/GETTY IMAGES; BLUE HERON © MBELL/GETTY IMAGES [ Continued on next page. ] CAMPAIGN UPDATE
“We’re determined that last year’s ill-gotten gains for the oil giants go down in the history books as the industry’s last hurrah.”
Clockwise from left: New drilling leases on public land in Wyoming and other states threaten to undermine last year’s landmark climate legislation; already hard-hit by offshore drilling, the Gulf Coast continues to be targeted by the oil and gas industry; NRDC is championing a fourfold increase in renewable energy such as solar.
prices? They made out like bandits in 2022,” says McEnaney. “The industry’s determined to keep us tethered to fossil fuels for decades to come; that’s what their push to secure more federal drilling leases is all about.”
NRDC is waging an all-out counteroffensive to stop that from happening. At the same time, our experts are advocating on every other major front to make sure the critical investments of the Inflation Reduction Act succeed in catapulting the United States toward a healthier and more just clean energy future. Our efforts include championing a fourfold increase in renewable energy; the build-out of a better, more reliable electric transmission system nationwide; an accelerated transition to electric vehicles; and even the decarbonization of industries, like steelmaking, that present some of the most technical—and intractable—climate challenges. And we’re committed to ensuring equity is central to this green new era by supporting the goal of directing 40 percent of all climate and clean energy investments to disadvantaged communities.
“You look back to the past year and you see two competing headlines: the boldest-ever U.S. climate action on the one hand, and blockbuster profits for the oil and gas industry on the other,” says Kennedy. “We’re determined that last year’s ill-gotten gains for the oil giants go down in the history books as the industry’s last hurrah.”
nrdc.org/stopfossilfuels
Canadian Logging Takes Alarming Climate Toll
Industrial logging is one of Canada’s leading sources of climate pollution, accounting for more than 10 percent of the country’s annual greenhouse gas emissions an amount roughly equal to the emissions from its dirty tar sands operations. That’s according to a recent bombshell report from NRDC and Nature Canada, which adds to the already damning evidence of logging’s devastating impact on Canada’s magnificent boreal forest.
Bees’ Fate May Hinge on Neonic Decision
Despite mounting scientific evidence that neonicotinoid pesticides, aka neonics, are a leading threat to bees and other disappearing pollinators, the EPA has delayed until later this spring its decision on whether to limit use of the chemicals. NRDC and our Members stand at the ready, prepared to challenge the agency both in and out of court if it fails to heed the science and protect people, ecosystems, and endangered wildlife from these chemicals.
For years the EPA has delayed its comprehensive
review of this class of toxic pesticides. Meanwhile, bee populations continue to plummet, neonics are increasingly implicated as a threat to human health, and they continue to worsen the biodiversity crisis. Prompted by an NRDC lawsuit, the agency last year released its long-overdue evaluation of the impact of one widely used neonic on endangered species. It found that imidacloprid likely harms 80 percent of all threatened and endangered species, including many pollinators. “Those findings were as clear as day,” says Lucas Rhoads, attorney for NRDC’s Pollinator Initiative. “We won’t stop fighting until the EPA takes the action necessary to protect people and ecosystems from these disastrous chemicals.”
National Marine Sanctuaries Need More TLC
They’re called National Marine Sanctuaries, but too often they struggle to live up to their name, according to recent reports. Now, 50 years after Congress authorized the creation of this visionary system to safeguard marine areas that have special ecological, cultural, and historical significance, NRDC is calling on the Biden administration to substantially strengthen protections for our iconic underwater parks and help fulfill the president’s pledge to protect biodiversity as well as 30 percent of America’s land and waters by 2030.
From the kelp forests surrounding California’s Channel Islands to the teeming live-bottom reefs off
the coast of Georgia, from the humpback whale nurseries of Hawaii to the wildlife-rich “Serengeti of the Sea” that is Monterey Bay, America’s marine sanctuaries encompass an awe-inspiring array of underwater treasures. Yet a recent, alarming analysis found that 37 percent of sanctuaries’ resources are in “fair” to “poor” condition and that 8 of the 10 largest sanctuaries receive only light or minimal protection. “We’re advocating for commonsense reforms to ensure that these special and historic places are true sanctuaries,” says NRDC Senior Policy Analyst Alison Chase. “We need to give them the protections they deserve.”
More than a million acres of Canadian boreal forest are clearcut each year, including some of the last remaining primary forests on earth. The destruction is driven in part by the demand of corporate giants like Procter & Gamble for pulp to make throwaway tissue products like toilet paper and paper towels. Both the logging industry and Canada’s own government have long perpetuated the myth that this clearcutting is sustainable, despite the toll the industry takes on scores of Indigenous communities and its destruction of important wildlife habitat. Now the most recent report dramatically underscores just how far off Canada’s logging is from purportedly being “carbon neutral.”
The analysis of the government’s own data finds logging emits tens of millions of tons of carbon dioxide every year, higher than emissions from electricity generation. Says Jennifer Skene, NRDC’s natural climate solutions policy manager and an author of the report, “It’s time for Canada to stop greenwashing and start tackling the egregious environmental impacts of its logging industry head-on.”
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BEE © NEIL SMITH/ALAMY; FLORIDA KEYS NMS © SHUTTERSTOCK; BOREAL FOREST © K. D. KIRCHMEIER/GETTY IMAGES
Canada’s boreal forest provides critical wildlife habitat while sequestering enormous amounts of carbon.
TAKE ACTION Florida Keys NMS
Protections for Critically Endangered Whales Get Snared in Politics
It’s been a harrowing and heartrending roller-coaster ride in the fight to save North Atlantic right whales, with the critically endangered animals poised to win life-saving protections only to be dealt an underhanded blow from special interests. Whale advocates were heartened after the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed new regulations to protect right whales from one of their leading causes of death, vessel strikes at sea. Tragically, mothers and calves are particularly vulnerable to being struck by boats because they often bond by spending time near the surface and in shallow waters.
More than 15,000 Members and
online activists joined NRDC in calling on the agency to adopt the tougher safeguards. With just 340 whales remaining, including fewer than 70 reproductive females, “every individual counts,” says NRDC Senior Scientist Francine Kershaw. But even as the Fisheries Service appears close to finalizing the new vessel speed requirements, a stealth move by the commercial fishing lobby has undermined the agency’s ability to protect right whales from another leading cause of death: entanglement in fishing gear. Indeed, the Fisheries Service was also drafting a new rule that would significantly reduce the entanglement risk posed by
the vertical buoy lines used by the American lobster and Jonah crab fisheries, which present a lethal threat to right whales in the Gulf of Maine. But a dangerous provision inserted at the last minute into must-pass federal spending legislation at the behest of the fishing lobby has derailed that effort, effectively barring the agency from implementing any new entanglement regulations for these fisheries for six years.
The move was a “terrible setback,” Kershaw says, but the campaign to save these magnificent animals is far from over. The same federal spending legislation also authorized funds for a new grant program to advance innovative gear technologies. NRDC will be redoubling our advocacy to make sure that the funds are specifically directed toward supporting a rapid transition to whale-saving ropeless fishing gear. “This technology works; it’s already being deployed successfully in other fisheries,” Kershaw says. “We strongly believe right whales and healthy fisheries can coexist.”
Spring into Action: Season for Change Is Here
By Manish Bapna, NRDC President
I find my spirit of springtime optimism particularly pronounced this year. Why? It’s not as if the crises we face of climate, of nature, of inequity—are any less dire. No, it’s because we have the potential to go bolder and faster on solutions to these crises than ever before and to build the world we want for a better future.
Thanks in no small part to the support of our Members, together we set the stage for this to be a year of action, and NRDC hit the ground running in 2023, as this issue of Nature’s Voice attests. With your support, we’ll continue to lead the charge to ensure that the landmark Inflation Reduction Act lives up to its
climate-saving potential, wrest our energy future from the grip of the fossil fuel industry, and reverse the legacy of environmental racism. Of course, NRDC’s legal team the Earth’s best defense will continue to fight in court to enforce and protect our environmental laws, as they have for more than 50 years. Even after the Trump administration stacked the federal bench including the Supreme Court with ideological judges, the courts are still our last, best line of defense against anti-environment attacks.
Undoubtedly one of the most valuable assets we have in this movement is you. During the critical battles ahead, we’ll continue to call
on the millions of NRDC Members and supporters like you to get involved: writing letters, signing petitions, and rallying together to push people in power to listen and take action.
I believe we can change the course of the future, for the better. As a father, I know that we simply must. My children are 15 and 13. Their generation is watching all these crises unfold and wondering what the future holds. We have a responsibility to give them a reason to be hopeful. We have a responsibility to build them a better world. And with NRDC on the job, backed by your support, I believe we will succeed.
North Atlantic right whale and calf
For the latest on the campaign to save North Atlantic right whales and how you can take action to help them, visit: nrdc.org/rightwhales
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