WINTER 2020
’ NATURE SVOICE For the 3 million Members and online activists of the Natural Resources Defense Council
IN THIS ISSUE
New regulations make it harder to protect imperiled species like the Sierra Nevada red fox.
Trump to At-Risk Species: Drop Dead Challenging Trump’s Do-Nothing Power Plan NRDC Fights to Save Our Natural Heritage From Trump Assault 10 Environmental Victories, Thanks to You!
NRDC works to safeguard the earth—its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends.
GINA MCCARTHY TO LEAD NRDC
As we go to press, NRDC has named Gina McCarthy— the former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama— as the organization’s new President and CEO, starting in January. “I take the helm determined to see that NRDC brings our country and our world together in the fight for a future that is healthier, more sustainable and equitable,” McCarthy said. McCarthy is one of the most effective environmental champions of our time. As EPA chief she strengthened safeguards for clean air and water, set the firstever limits on carbon pollution from power plants and helped pave the way for the landmark Paris climate agreement. Stay tuned for more about her in the next issue.
Victory
BEES GET MORE PROTECTION
Thanks to a lawsuit by NRDC, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to make a critical habitat determination for the imperiled rusty patched bumblebee by next summer. The long-overdue decision should have been made within a year of the pollinator’s endangered species listing in 2017, but the agency failed to take action. The bee is running out of time: Threatened by disease, habitat loss and pesticides, the species has disappeared from more than 90 percent of its historic range in mere decades.
CLEAN CARS FOR CALIFORNIA
NRDC and our allies are suing the Trump administration for attempting to strip California and 13 other states of their right to adopt tough clean car standards that would keep billions of tons of climatebusting pollution out of the atmosphere. The standards require automakers to steadily reduce emissions—and they would also save consumers billions of dollars at the pump. Last summer, four leading carmakers and California agreed to keep the bar for clean car standards high—because our health and climate depend on it. If the Trump administration rolls back the federal standards too, we’ll take them back to court.
C OV E R A RT I C L E
TRUMP TO AT-RISK SPECIES: DROP DEAD
I
n a potentially devastating blow to imperiled wildlife across the United States, the Trump administration has followed through on its threats to dramatically weaken the Endangered Species Act (ESA), one of the country’s most widely supported and successful environmental laws. NRDC and our allies swiftly filed suit to stop the rollback, which would effectively gut the law that has brought iconic species like the gray wolf and the bald eagle back from the brink. Even as the ESA has proved to be an unparalleled success—it has prevented the extinction of 99 per cent of listed species—dismantling it has long been the target of lobbyists for the drilling, mining and other destructive industries. “In the midst of an unprecedented extinction crisis, the Trump admin istration is eviscerating our most effective wildlife protection law,” says Rebecca Riley, legal director for NRDC’s Nature Program. “These rollbacks will
place vulnerable species in immediate danger—all to line the pockets of industry.” The Trump adminis tration’s weakened regulations allow economic factors to infect decisions about whether to grant lifesaving protections to imperiled species, flouting the law’s core principle, that these decisions should be based solely on scientific data. The administra tion’s plan also makes it harder to protect embattled species, such as monarch butterflies and the Sierra Nevada red fox, that urgently need federal protec tion. And the impacts would extend globally, making it more difficult for our nation to do its part to help save wildlife around the world—from oceanic whitetip sharks to African elephants and rhinocer oses—from extinction. The Trump administration’s rollbacks not only defy overwhelming public support for protecting endangered species but spurn scientific consensus as well. A recent bombshell United Nations report
warned that industrial development, climate change and other factors are driving more species toward extinction than at any other point in the past 10 million years. Says Riley, “We will fight in court to reverse this administration’s reckless—and illegal— rewrite of the Endangered Species Act.” RED FOX © DREAMSTIME; POWER PLANT © PHIL AUGUSTAVO/ISTOCK
G O O D N EWS
S P E C I A L R E P O RT
Challenging Trump’s Do-Nothing Power Plan The environmental campaigns and victories featured in Nature’s Voice are all made possible through your generous support. NRDC.ORG/GIVE
The Trump administration has acted to scrap the landmark Clean Power Plan—which would, for the first time, place binding limits on greenhouse emissions from existing power plants, the nation’s single biggest source of climate-destroying pollution. This innovative plan has been replaced with the so-called Affordable Clean Energy Act—a do-nothing strategy to extend the life of coal-burning power plants. “The climate crisis is intensifying, and clean energy costs are falling. The EPA should be strengthening the Clean Power Plan, not scrapping it for a dirty power scheme,” says David Doniger, senior strategic director of NRDC’s Climate &
Clean Energy Program. The repeal would be harmful to our health: A stronger Clean Power Plan could save up to 5,200 more Americans each year from early deaths from air pollution, according to NRDC’s analysis using the EPA’s own scientific methods. The repeal would also be illegal: NRDC and our partners are challenging the EPA in court to reinstate and update the Clean Power Plan, arguing that the agency is violating the Clean Air Act. “The EPA is legally required to put the ‘best system of emissions reductions’ in place,” Doniger says. “The Dirty Power Plan completely misses that mark.”
CA M PA I G N U P DAT E
NRDC FIGHTS TO SAVE OUR NATURAL HERITAGE FROM TRUMP ASSAULT
A
protecting for future generations, you can hardly imagine more perfect examples than the Arctic Refuge or the Western Arctic,” says Niel Lawrence, director of NRDC’s Alaska program. “And in light of the environmental crises we face, preserving our last remaining tracts of large, intact wilderness like those in Alaska is more imperative than ever.”
No other president has done more to try to dismantle President Roosevelt’s conservation legacy than Donald Trump. Clockwise from top left: Bears Ears National Monument; caribou in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; a lynx in the Tongass National Forest; Bristol Bay, Alaska
in Alaska. That state’s vast tracts of untouched wil derness have made it an outsize target for Trump’s radical agenda of maximum extraction. The Trump administration is barreling forward with plans to open the biological heart of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, threatening to destroy denning habitat for America’s vulnerable polar bears, calving grounds for caribou and vital habitat for a stunning array of wildlife, from wolves and musk oxen to millions of migratory birds. NRDC is suing to block the administration from sacrificing this “American Serengeti” to the oil and gas indus try. We’re also battling in court against Big Oil’s raid
of the Western Arctic. No less important a sanctuary for Arctic wildlife than the Arctic Refuge, this area is home to the Teshekpuk caribou herd—ranging in the tens of thousands of animals—that the Native Iñupiat people have relied on for generations. And we are defending, against President Trump’s appeal, our district court win that held unconstitutional his effort to reopen for oil and gas leasing 125 million acres of the Arctic Ocean off the coast of the Arctic Refuge and Western Arctic. “When you think about the kind of untouched wilderness that the foundational figures in American conservation like Teddy Roosevelt were talking about
These “last best places,” as Lawrence points out, shelter biodiversity at its most robust, buffer it from climate change and give species the breathing room and space to adapt over time, which is critical in light of the recent and alarming United Nations report on the rapid disappearance of the earth’s bio diversity. The fast-melting Arctic is already ground zero for the disastrous impacts of climate change. So leaving Arctic oil in the ground—instead of burning it—is essential if we are to spare both the Arctic and the rest of the planet the ravages of climate chaos. Yet given Trump’s notorious view that climate change is a “hoax,” coupled with his penchant for staffing federal agencies with lobbyists and allies of America’s dirtiest industries, it’s no surprise that his administration has ignored such urgent [Continued on next page.]
BEARS EARS © BOB WICK/BLM; CARIBOU © ART WOLFE; LYNX © MIKE DENEGA/USFS; BRISTOL BAY © RYAN PETERSON
t age 27 Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed, “We have fallen heirs to the most glorious heritage a people ever received, and each one must do his part if we wish to show that the nation is worthy of its good fortune.” After he became president, Roosevelt would find himself in a singular position to heed his own admonishment. Establishing a legacy that would become the corner stone of conservation in America, Roosevelt’s administration set aside some 230 million acres of public lands, including 18 national monuments he created under the Antiquities Act of 1906. A year after Roosevelt left office, his ardor for protecting America’s magnificent wild landscapes and cultural treasures was as strong as ever. Short of having to go to war, he argued in 1910, no question that faced the nation “compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us.” Fast-forward slightly more than 100 years, and it’s easy to imagine what Roosevelt might have had to say about the current occupant of the White House. No other president has done more to try to dismantle Roosevelt’s conservation legacy than Donald Trump. His relentless push to hand over our public lands to enrich some of America’s most destructive industries has met an equally wide-ranging NRDC counterat tack, both in and out of court. From coast to coast, NRDC is fighting to defend our irreplaceable wild lands from being destroyed by a modern-day land grab unleashed by developer-turned-president Trump. NRDC’s lawsuits to stop Trump from drasti cally shrinking two stunning national monuments in Utah’s redrock country by two million acres— Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante—go right to the legal heart of the matter, the 1906 Antiquities Act. By riding roughshod over this law, which grants presidents the authority to designate national monuments, Trump has epitomized his disdain for America’s bedrock environmental protections. Nowhere is the sheer scale of Trump’s attack on our priceless natural heritage more pronounced than
arguments, or that its attacks on Alaska keep com ing. Despite the overwhelming opposition of Native groups and local fishermen, the Trump administra tion has moved to resurrect the nightmare Pebble Mine project, which would gouge a massive openpit copper and gold mine out of the headwaters of Bristol Bay, home to the world’s greatest wild salmon runs. In October NRDC and our allies filed suit to stop the mine’s permitting process in what promises to be only the first of several courtroom battles. Meanwhile, in southeastern Alaska, the adminis tration is steamrolling ahead with plans to strip roadless protections from 9.5 million acres of the Tongass National Forest, the heart of the largest re maining temperate rainforest in the world and home to a flourishing native ecosystem that includes brown bears, wolves, bald eagles and all five Pacific salmon species. The Trump administration wants to pave the way—literally—for more logging of the forest’s magnificent stands of old-growth cedar, spruce and hemlock trees and to open the forest to other indus trial development. NRDC won’t hesitate to go back to court to defend the Tongass from this onslaught. Fueling our fight against Trump’s far-reaching and destructive assault on public lands is a sentiment embodied, not surprisingly, in another statement by the young Theodore Roosevelt—one that rings pre sciently clear. “So it is peculiarly incumbent on us here today to so act throughout our lives as to leave our children a heritage for which we will receive their blessings, and not,” he warned, “their curses.”
Your Membership Support of NRDC Made a World of Difference in 2019
Thanks to your generous donations, here are some of the landmark environmental victories we won, in and out of court, over the past year.
SAVING WILDLIFE INTERNATIONALLY
FRACKED GAS PIPELINE BLOCKED
ENERGY POLLUTERS MUST PAY UP
COURT SAYS NO TO OCEAN DRILLING
BIG STEP FORWARD FOR GIRAFFES
UPHOLDING THE IVORY BAN
SAVING A NATURAL TREASURE
INDUSTRY CRONY ZINKE IS OUT
DEFENDING LAND AND CLIMATE
NRDC helped win stronger protections against the trade in Asian otters, giraffes, sharks and vaquitas at the global summit on endangered species.
A judge agreed with NRDC that President Trump illegally sought to reinstate risky offshore drilling in the pristine Arctic Ocean and deepwater canyons of the Atlantic.
WIN FOR ENDANGERED WHALES
Facing legal pressure, the Trump administration granted endangered species protections to the Gulf of Mexico whale, which now numbers fewer than 50 individuals.
Please help us win even more victories in 2020 by making a tax-deductible contribution at NRDC.ORG/VICTORIES
Siding with NRDC, a court found that BLM illegally approved oil and gas drilling in the Greater Chaco Region—a New Mexico landscape sacred to indigenous cultures.
The governors of New York and New Jersey rejected the proposed Williams fracked gas pipeline following a groundswell of opposition, including from NRDC’s Members.
An NRDC lawsuit forced the Trump administration to consider endangered species protections for giraffes, whose populations have plunged 40 percent in three decades.
Trump’s Interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, stepped down, thanks in part to pressure from an NRDC campaign that called out his ethics challenges and industry-first bias.
Our courtroom action stopped the Trump administration from letting fossil fuel companies avoid paying millions in royalties for mining and drilling on our public lands.
A California court upheld a state ban on ivory sales, a law NRDC championed that aims to help save elephants by reducing global demand for ivory.
A court rejected a BLM plan to allow oil and gas drilling in the Western Slope in Colorado, finding it failed to consider the real-world impacts on climate.
WHALE © NOAA; OTTERS COURTESY DR. NICOLE DUPLAIX; PROTEST MARCH © ERIK MCGREGOR; FLAME © LANO LAN/SHUTTERSTOCK; POLAR BEARS © SEPP FRIEDHUBER/ISTOCK; GIRAFFE © ISTOCK; ELEPHANTS © JOHAN ELZENGA/ISTOCK; CHACO CANYON © JOHN FOWLER VIA FLICKR; ZINKE © GAGE SKIDMORE; COLORADO © LARRY LAMSA VIA FLICKR
[Continued from previous page.]
After years of denial and delays, city and state officials have announced that they will replace ancient lead service lines in Newark, New Jersey, at no direct cost to residents. Levels of lead in the city’s drinking water are among the highest recorded by a large water system in the United States. The significant step forward is largely due to a joint lawsuit by NRDC and our partner, the Newark Education Workers Caucus. “Legal pressure and media attention accelerated the pace of pipe replacement,” says Erik D. Olson,
NRDC senior strategic director for health and food. “While the lead service line replacement plans take shape, NRDC will continue to fight to ensure that at-risk residents have access to safe water.” Though Newark’s drinking water crisis became public in 2017, it actually began years earlier when city officials failed to take the necessary steps to treat the city’s water so it would not corrode the lead pipes. Despite numerous warnings that the city was in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act, and despite formal requests
to take action from NRDC and local partners, public officials continued to deny the facts and failed to take sufficient steps to reduce contamination or inform residents of the health risks. “By the time the city agreed to distribute filters and bottled water, many residents had been exposed to lead for years,” Olson says. There is no safe level of lead exposure. Pregnant women and children are particularly vulnerable to its effects. Even low levels can harm developing brains, leading to learning disabilities, ADHD and drops in IQ. For years, Newark has had the largest number of lead-poisoned children in New Jersey, and testing revealed in 2016 showed elevated lead levels in dozens of its schools’ drinking water. NRDC takes on polluters and local governments directly, often on behalf of low-income communities of color that suffer first and suffer most from environmental harm. Building on our work in Flint, where we secured the agreement to replace that city’s lead pipes, NRDC continues to press for safe drinking water nationwide. “We will remain vigilant in Newark and see this case through to the end,” Olson says.
Imperiled Species Win Protections at Global Summit Zak Smith, Senior Attorney, Nature Program
NRDC’s International Wildlife Conservation team wrapped up two weeks of work at meetings of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in Geneva. We had high hopes going into the conference that the parties to CITES—182 nations and the European Union—would heed the warnings of the United Nations Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity, which estimates that one million species are facing extinction. I’m glad to report that the parties voted largely in favor of greater protections for wildlife or against conservation reversals. NRDC’s team fought a proposal by Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe that would
have enabled those nations to resume trade in elephant ivory, as well as a proposal by Zambia to weaken protection of its elephant population. Happily, these proposals were rejected by the parties. More than two years ago, NRDC put together a plan to increase protections for Asia’s freshwater otters, which have declined drastically due to habitat destruction, the global trade in otter skins and the international pet trade. Our efforts were a resounding success: We advocated for two proposals— one for smooth-coated otters and another for small-clawed otters— that would upgrade protection and thereby ban international commercial trade. The proposals were adopted by wide margins, giving some
T O P R AT E D B Y C H A R I T Y N AV I G AT O R . O R G N AT U R A L R E S O U R C E S D E F E N S E C O U N C I L 40 WEST 20TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10011 WWW.NRDC.ORG/NATURESVOICE NATURESVOICE@NRDC.ORG | 212.727.4500
Local residents carry bottled water from the Newark Department of Health and Welfare.
EDITOR IN CHIEF STEPHEN MILLS, MANAGING EDITOR LIZ LINKE
CREATE YOUR OWN LASTING LEGACY
WRITERS JASON BEST, COURTNEY LINDWALL
Make a bequest to NRDC and help preserve our natural heritage for generations to come. NRDC.ORG/FUTURE
DIRECTOR OF MEMBERSHIP GINA TRUJILLO
of Asia’s otters a fighting chance. Other successful proposals, supported by NRDC, will enhance protection for imperiled giraffes, further control the international trade in sharks, and make recommendations to Mexico on the steps it should take to save the vaquita, a small, rare porpoise that is the most endangered marine mammal on the planet. Recent studies show, however, that CITES—the only treaty we have to protect wildlife imperiled by trade—is failing to protect many species threatened with extinction. That’s why NRDC is now developing new initiatives that will dramatically change our approach to species exploitation and strengthen CITES as a force for conservation.
NEWARK RESIDENTS © DEMETRIUS FREEMAN FOR NRDC; PINE NEEDLES © ALAMY; ZAK SMITH © REBECCA GREENFIELD FOR NRDC; BISON © JACOB W. FRANK/NPS
Following NRDC Legal Action, Newark Will Replace Its Lead Pipes
N R D C VO I C E S