G2. Local Greens

File:  ltr to Congress, 76 scientists 2012.pdfResource Type: Letters

File:  ltr to Congress, 76 scientists 2012.pdfResource Type: Letters

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

August 14, 2026

Mining Claims Filed Immediately After Trump Decimates National Monuments in Utah – 8.14.26  Attempts to file mining claims in Bear Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments shows industry clamoring to exploit landscapes

Contacts:
Grant Stevens, Communications Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (319) 427-0260; grant@suwa.org
Autumn Gillard, Coordinator, Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition; (928) 614-2600; autumnavielle@gmail.com
Perry Wheeler, Earthjustice, pwheeler@earthjustice.org, (202) 792-6211
Keri Gilliland, The Wilderness Society, (KGilliland@tws.org)
Chaitna Sinha, Conservation Codirector and Staff Attorney, Grand Canyon Trust; (970) 399-9565 (csinha@grandcanyontrust.org)
Amy Dominguez, Sierra Club, amy.dominguez@sierraclub.org, (385) 355-4631
Kris Deutschman, Conservation Lands Foundation, kris@conservationlands.org, (505) 498-0212
Andrew Scibetta, NRDC, (202) 289-2421, ascibetta@nrdc.org
Daniel Hernandez, National Parks Conservation Association, dhernandez@npca.org, (202) 573-2201

SOUTHERN UTAH – Within one day of President Trump illegally reducing Bears Ears National Monument by over 90%, a company staked multiple mining claims in areas cut out of the monument. On July 14, 2026, Kimmerle Mining filed 7 mining claims (see map) with the San Juan County (Utah) Recorder’s Office. Kimmerle Mining previously filed mining claims after Trump’s 2017 reduction of Bears Ears and excavated a partially reclaimed mine shaft on one of the claims – the so-called Easy Peasy claim (this mine has been re-buried); Kyle Kimmerle (a Managing Member of Kimmerle Mining) was also a plaintiff in one of the cases filed in the District of Utah challenging President Biden’s 2021 restoration of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.  

Two mining claims were also recently filed in Grand Staircase-Escalante, less than one month after Trump’s attack. On August 6, 2026, Craig Rosequist filed two mining claims (see map) with the Kane County (Utah) Recorder’s Office in areas cut out of the monument by the Trump proclamations. According to public records, Rosequist previously located several mining claims in neighboring Washington County, Utah.

Under President Trump’s proclamations decimating Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, mining claims cannot be staked until 60 days after the date of the proclamation, which will be Friday, Sept. 11: “Appropriation of lands under the mining laws before the date and time of restoration is unauthorized.  Any such attempted appropriation, including attempted adverse possession under 30 U.S.C. 38, shall vest no rights against the United States.” In light of this prohibition and the illegality of the Trump proclamations, the Bureau of Land Management should reject these recently filed claims in both national monuments. Below are quotes from Tribal leaders, conservation groups, and additional information. 

“When we talk about Grand Staircase-Escalante, we are not simply talking about public land or a national monument. We are talking about our homelands — living landscapes with personhood and spirit,” said Autumn Gillard, Southern Paiute and Coordinator of the Grand Staircase Inter-Tribal Coalition. “New mining on lands unlawfully cut from the monument threatens not just the land’s natural beauty, plants, and animals, but our sacred places, our culture, and our history. We are all stewards of these lands, and it is our duty to protect them for all our future generations, yours and mine.” 

“This rush to locate new mining claims in Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments – even though premature and unlawful – reinforces the need to be vigilant over the next several years while we work to undo Trump’s illegal actions and restore the monuments.“said Hanna Larsen, Staff Attorney at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “Mining claims like these often lead to real and long-lasting damage to the very qualities that make these monuments so special.”

“The rush to stake mining claims in Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante has already begun, nearly a month before new mining claims would be allowed even under the illegal Trump proclamations,” said Axie Navas, director of designation campaigns at The Wilderness Society. “It’s hard to imagine a clearer sign of where this administration wants to take our public lands. National monuments belong to all of us. They represent our freedom to experience some of the most extraordinary landscapes in the country. We owe it to future generations to protect them — not sacrifice them for the short-term profit of special interests.”

“Mining claims on the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument puts crucial water resources at risk. The Monument protects over 2,510 river miles that could be negatively impacted by mining waste if claims are approved in haste. These rivers flow into Lake Powell and the Grand Canyon, which are visited by millions of people.” said Dr. Jackie Grant, Executive Director of the Grand Staircase-Escalante Partners. “If these mining claims are not being legally filed, what other illegal actions should we be worried about?”

“These illegal mining claims are proof that the Trump administration’s proclamations, if allowed to stand, would be devastating for public lands that are cherished by people across the country,” said Thomas Delehanty, senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office. “President Trump’s proclamations were themselves illegal, and forthcoming litigation will seek to avoid this exact outcome. Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, incredibly significant to Indigenous communities and beloved by recreationists for their one-of-a-kind features, deserve better than to be sacrificed to industrial extraction.”

“The speed with which the mining industry moved to stake claims following the dismantling of the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments demonstrates the real-world consequences of stripping protections from one of America’s most important landscapes,” said Bobby McEnaney, Director of Land Conservation at NRDC. “This sequence of events underscores exactly why Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante were originally established and why these landscapes deserve lasting protection. These future mining claims amount to a virtual giveaway of public lands.”

“While it’s clear these Kimmerle Mining claims were illegally staked before the ink was dry on Trump’s proclamation stripping national monument protections from these areas, it’s important to recognize that any future mining claims in the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante cultural landscapes are unacceptable,” said Chaitna Sinha, Conservation Codirector and Staff Attorney with the Grand Canyon Trust. “The cultural values here are irreplaceable; this is simply the wrong place for destructive new mining.” 

“The mining claims we’re seeing submitted in Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante on the heels of their illegal reduction goes to show that the Trump Administration intends to turn the public lands we love into sacrifice zones for privatization and exploitation,” said Franque Bains, Chapter Director of the Sierra Club in Utah. “We are prepared to fight to ensure that national monuments and public lands don’t become pawns in a scheme to turn a profit for corporate interests.” 

“It’s clear this administration will cut every corner and violate laws and guardrails to accelerate the destruction of America’s natural treasures,” Chris Hill, CEO of the Conservation Lands Foundation. “The ideologues driving this anti-public lands agenda are willfully ignoring the millions of Americans who stood up to protect Bears Ears and Grand Staircase national monuments and the overwhelming majority of Americans who support protecting MORE public lands. They forget they are accountable to everyone who values these natural places and is determined to expose their corruption.”  

“Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante were established to protect over a hundred thousand ancestral sites and are among the most beloved public lands in Utah. Mere weeks after their downsizing, we are seeing the very first mining claims being staked among their cultural and natural treasures, enabled by an outdated mining law from 1872,” said Sara Cawley, Energy Director at the National Parks Conservation Association. “It’s clear the arguments about access were always about access for mining companies. This puts the connectivity and health of dozens of national parks, monuments and protected wildlife corridors all the way to the Mojave Desert at risk, a precursor for what we can expect on other public lands under this administration unless more permanent protections are enacted to safeguard our special places.”

Background Information on Mining claims: 

• Map of 2026 claims in Bear Ears, showing the 2021 and 2026 Monument Boundaries and noting the location of the Easy Peasy Mine, created by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA)
• Map of 2026 Claims in Grand Staircase-Escalante, created by SUWA
• Photo and video assets of Kimmerle’s Easy Peasy Mine and surrounding claims, please credit Tim Peterson.
  • Gallery & Gdrive 
  • Video b-roll

Background information about the national monument reductions:

• Statements from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal coalitions
• SUWA Statement on Trump’s Illegal Reductions of Grand Staircase-Escalante & Bears Ears National Monuments
• Full Statement and Quotes Tracking
• Maps of the reductions
• Reporter Background Memo on National Monuments

###

The Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition, which includes the Hopi Tribe, the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, the Navajo Nation, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and the Zuni Tribe, advocates for Grand-Staircase-Escalante National Monument, for Tribal voices and perspectives to be heard and included in the management of the monument, and for protecting the monument for all Americans to appreciate and enjoy. Learn more at www.grandstaircasecoalition.org 

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters from around the country dedicated to protecting America’s redrock wilderness. From offices in Moab, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC, our team of professionals defends the redrock, organizes support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, and stewards a world-renowned landscape. Learn more at www.suwa.org.

The Grand Canyon Trust is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to safeguard the wonders of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado Plateau, while supporting the rights of its Native peoples. Learn more at www.grandcanyontrust.org

 

 

The post Mining Claims Filed Immediately After Trump Decimates National Monuments in Utah – 8.14.26 appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) — North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson is disputing Duke Energy’s description of a proposed electricity rate increase, arguing that the company misrepresented under oath how much residential customers would pay under a recent settlement agreement.

The disagreement comes as Duke Energy seeks approval for a settlement that would raise rates by 6.8% over the next two years. The proposal would affect customers across the Triangle and other parts of the state.

…

Climate advocacy group NC WARN also raised concerns about the proposal.

“You know, last year, Duke reported a record $5 billion in profits, while many North Carolinians are really struggling to pay for their electric bills,” said Sara Heilman of NC WARN.

Jackson argues that residential customers would see a 9.3% increase rather than the 6.8% increase referenced by Duke Energy. Heilman said that level of increase remains unacceptable.

“But really, from our perspective, 9.3% is still too high of an increase for residential customers, especially when those increases in the bills that we’re paying are really going towards building unnecessary power plants, fueling these massive power-guzzling data centers that communities are not asking for and really not serving the interests of the average North Carolinian,” Heilman said.

Continue reading

The post NC attorney general challenges Duke Energy rate hike figure: ‘Details matter’ — ABC11 appeared first on NC WARN.

“The Hub” is a weekly round-up of transportation related news in the Philadelphia area and beyond. Check back weekly to keep up-to-date on the issues Clean Air Council’s transportation staff finds important.

As exciting events continue in Philadelphia, learn how you can get around to major summer 2026 events without a car, or being stuck in traffic with GoPhillyGo: Car-Free Routes Map!

Register now to join Transit for All PA! for a statewide call on Wednesday, August 19th from 6-7 PM. Join to discuss how transit riders and transit advocates can win funding for transit in 2027. Register here! 

Transit 4 All PA is hiring fellows, with two paid positions in Luzerne and Lackawanna Counties: to support transit advocates in building local demand for transit. If you live in Luzerne or Lackawanna County, and you ride transit, apply TODAY. Application closes on September 2, 2026. Learn more here. 

Image Source: SEPTA

Metro Philadelphia: SEPTA’s 11th Street Station closing for major accessibility upgrades – Beginning early September, the Market-Frankford Line will be skipping 11th Street for around a year. The station will be closed though the end of August of 2027, according to SEPTA. Plans include building two elevators, improving lighting, and structural repairs, making the station fully ADA compliant as part of a $44 million project. Other than 11th Street, the 34th Street and Spring Garden stations are the only remaining inaccessible, with future plans to construct elevators at both.  

Image Source: WHYY

WHYY: SEPTA celebrates new Navy Yard bus service in the rapidly changing Philadelphia neighborhood – The Route 45 bus travels from Center City to the Navy Yard, simplifying a route that many commuters and riders previously relied on a shuttle bus transfer for. This change is part of the New Bus Network, which began in phase 1 this month. The planned goal is to consolidate routes and adjust service for riders. 

Image Source: Northeast Times

Northeast Times: Self-driving SEPTA buses unlikely soon, but a state bill aims to prepare – State Representative Ben Waxman, representing House District 182, which includes parts of Center City and South Philadelphia, has introduced a bill that bares completely autonomous transit vehicles. The bill would require transit vehicles weighing over 10,000 pounds and using an automated driving system to have a licensed driver on board. SEPTA has announced no plans to introduce autonomous buses, but Representative Waxman said he discussed the proposal with SEPTA officials. 

Other Stories

WHYY: Commission approves at least $300 million in funding to expand bike and walking trails in Philly area 

The Inquirer: Self-policing loading zones have worked in Center City, the PPA says, so they’re adding more 

Northeast Times: Bridge Street ramp to I-95 closing permanently this month 

PhillyVoice: Walnut Street will go car-free for seven Sundays this fall 

Philadelphia Today: PennDOT Launching $2 Million Repair Project on Historic University Avenue Bridge 

CBS Pittsburgh: Tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike will increase in 2027. Here’s how much more drivers will pay. 

On August 11, a quorum of the Questa City Council, minus the absent Mayor John Ortego, called for a special meeting within 72 hours to address Kit Carson Electric Cooperative’s proposed hydrogen plant and solar array. Mayor Ortega, an employee of KCEC, has been accused of approving the hydrogen project, and the funding to support it, without oversight or approval of the City Council. Council members had been trying for months to get the project on the agenda and to meet with KCEC without support from the mayor.

Work on the project has been ongoing despite the fact that the Council doesn’t know if a proper County work permit has been issued and has never seen the United States Department of Agriculture’s application that supports the project (a FOIA request for all pertinent USDA information has been submitted). The Council never approved the $20 million that funds the solar array, where work has also begun. At one point Councilor Daryl Ortega, after questioning how the Questa city attorneys had failed to ascertain if KCEC had obtained a permit for the project, announced in frustration: “Without a permit this project needs to be shut down!” The crowd erupted in applause.

When the meeting was opened for public comment, Honorio Justin Rael, the law school student and Questa native who wrote the complaint filed by Questa acequias against the USDA’s approval of the hydrogen project, had this to say:

[T]onight I want to talk about some internal controls based on my 11,000-page IPRA [Inspection of Public Records]. So I reviewed the entire thing, and one thing has become crystal clear to me about the Village of Questa.

The people who make decisions for this town do not sit on that board. It is the Questa Economic Development Fund. The Questa Economic Development Fund is an independent Chevron-funded nonprofit partner, but they are not an elected governing body.

Yet their agendas are probably four times the size of any agenda I’ve seen from this village. And you know how we’ve never gotten any updates on what’s going on with this project? Well, they get monthly detailed updates from the mayor. Last year, they made teams to complete the zoning ordinance that allowed this project to move forward without a project-specific vote.

They made a team to develop a communication strategy concerning the project using the Questa del Rio News. And they’ve discussed ways that village meetings can be controlled to limit public backlash. The point being that an advisory board has been formulating zoning, public communications, lobbying grants, major financing strategies, and the public access to its own government with basically zero input from the village council.

The $20 million grant makes this problem concrete. Now, I’ve never heard of this, but on February 1st, the mayor submitted an ECAM [Energy Conservation and Management] grant on behalf of the Village of Questa. He requested approximately $35.2 million. And the application stated that the public funding would be used exclusively for infrastructure owned by KCEC. Then the people funding the grant, ENMRD, notified the mayor that Questa had received a reduced partial $20 million award. Kit Carson then told the mayor, quote, seems you only have to approve that you accept this partial $20 million and then we are good to go. All the other steps are the standard contracting that we can work through.

Kit Carson treated the acceptance of a $20 million grant as something that the mayor could approve alone, after which Kit Carson would handle the rest. Was there a resolution approving this application or accepting the award? No.

Now, who will own the infrastructure? Nobody knows. Who is responsible for compliance, repayment, or a potential claw-back? I’m asking you to put some guardrails on the Questa Economic Development Fund. Make it clear to them that they can advise and assist, but they may not represent the village, formulate final policy, or commit village resources without council authority.

La Jicarita will let readers know when the Questa City Council special meeting will be held once it’s determined.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bold Nebraska’s 2014 GOTV (Get Out the Vote) door-to-door canvass in Omaha. (Photo: J Grace Young)

Nebraskans deserve to know where the legislative candidates who are asking for their votes stand on the issue of risky carbon capture projects and the abuse of eminent domain by private carbon pipeline corporations.

We need to get each candidate on the record – but we need your help.

Below is a sample message, contact info for candidates, and a link to a form to report back their responses. If you can contact just 3 candidates, it will greatly help us reach our goal!

If you have any questions, please reach out to Shelli Meyer at shelli@boldalliance.org or Tom Genung at tom@boldnebraska.org.

P.S. While we are focused on legislative candidates, it doesn’t hurt to ask candidates running for other offices about this issue, too!

Sample phone/email conversation with candidate:

“Hello, I am reaching out as a Nebraska voter. I am concerned about risky carbon capture and storage (CCS) schemes taking place across our state and the undermining of our property rights by privately-owned corporations abusing eminent domain. If elected, will you protect landowners and communities by supporting legislation that prohibits the use of eminent domain for CCS projects?

Thank you for your time,”

Click here for a list of candidates and contact info, and a form to report-back your results. 

• Manteca Bulletin: SoCal killed off Owens Lake & Colorado River Delta; the Sacramento-SJ Delta is next
• Sierra Club: Can a Water Renaissance Put California on a Sustainable Path?
• The Guardian: Drought, water rationing and dry rivers: our water crisis is here

A recent editorial by Dennis Wyatt in the Manteca Bulletin criticizes irresponsible policies that have threatened critical water sources and ecosystems, contributing to concerningly low water levels in Mono Lake, Owens Lake, and the Colorado River Delta. Wyatt argues that California’s current approach to water management risks doing the same to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, as tightening restrictions on Colorado River usage lead powerful water users in Southern California to seek more diversions. 

The editorial points to costly proposals like the Delta Conveyance Project (DCP), which would cost billions while damaging critical ecosystems and diverting resources away from local water needs. Instead, the author advocates for more pragmatic and sustainable solutions, including  repairing aging levees and investing in local water supplies.

In another recent article, the Sierra Club raises similar concerns, uplifting the Water Renaissance Plan as a roadmap for developing sustainable local water supplies. The article notes that climate change, as was similarly argued in this Guardian opinion piece, and aging infrastructure are making large-scale diversions and imported water increasingly unreliable.

The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta already faces degraded water quality, declining fish populations, and harmful algal blooms, yet Governor Newsom and state water agencies continue to push forward projects like the DCP.

The sustainable strategies outlined in the Water Renaissance Plan, including stormwater capture, wastewater recycling, and water conservation, could generate between 1.8 to 2 million acre-feet of local water supply by 2045, at a lower cost than the DCP, while providing more resilient water supplies in the face of climate change. 

As Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director at Restore the Delta, states, “To date, recommendations around restoration of the delta—from levee upgrades to use of tribal ecological knowledge, restored flows, and local restoration practices around land management—have taken a backseat in water planning to infrastructure that will not hold up to the climate change scenario.”

ALERT’s citizen suit clears the way for safer products during oil spill response

August 13, 2026 – Recently, an Oregon state oil spill response planner asked me, “Have you seen EPA’s new product schedule?” I had not. “Something weird happened to it,” he said. “There’s almost nothing on it.” We both googled it and discovered that EPA’s new list of products for oil spill response contained five products. “See?” the state planner said. “What happened to the other 130 products?”

What happened was the successful lawsuit brought by ALERT and allies in 2020. Our citizen suit changed the rules governing use of dispersants (our focus) and other products – such as surface washing agents, solidifiers, herding agents, and bioremediation agents – during oil spill responses. EPA tightened the protocols for testing products to eliminate more toxic products, required full disclosure of ingredients (no hiding toxic ingredients as “confidential business information”), and significantly, added rules for removing products from the schedule –  an option previously unavailable to citizens. Rules for removal require evidence that technical information supplied to EPA by the manufacturer was incorrect, inaccurate, misleading, or outdated concerning impacts to human health and the environment. In other words, anything less than truthful.

Under court supervision, EPA allowed a lengthy three-year conditional use period, counting the six-months between promulgation of the new rules and when they went into effect on December 11, 2023. [88 FR 38336, June 12, 2023] That conditional use period – which grandfathered in all 130+ products that were listed as of June 12, 2023 – ended on June 10, 2026. The new EPA Product Schedule lists four dispersants and one surface washing agent. Apparently, the manufacturers of the other 130+ products could not or chose not to meet the new requirements.

Was it all smoke and mirrors? Decades of deception that oil spills can be “cleaned up” with chemical products that miraculously create a net benefit instead of more harm than good? Manipulated lab tests? Biased statistics and formulas? Carefully worded labeling that could make black appear to be white? A growing “wealth defense industry” with legions of lawyers who could make thousands of toxic tort cases disappear from workers and the public who were directly exposed to their product? Apparently so.

The famous “Gulf Walrus” are another myth found only in oil spill contingency plans for the Gulf of Mexico at the time of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. The error was corrected but the industry’s disrespect for human health and the environment remains.

Case in point: Corexit dispersants were the go-to in the US for oil spill response and comprised 45% of global stockpiles. No more. The former owner of Corexit dispersants, ChampionX, voluntarily pulled the plug on its Corexit product line in November 2022 when EPA’s proposed rules were moving inexorably under court supervision towards promulgation. Then, ChampionX vanished altogether when it was acquired by SLB (Schlumberger) in 2025. Corexit was just one of the 130+ products. The others just disappeared more quietly on June 10, 2026.

We did this – ALERT and the hundreds of concerned citizens over fifteen years who stepped up and signed onto petitions for this rulemaking and the lawsuit. We wiped out 130+ likely toxic products on EPA’s list.

So, where does this leave us?ALERT and the Government Accountability Project filed a noncompliance complaint with OSHA about its less than truthful reporting on technical literature for three of the five dispersants that are currently on EPA’s list. (The other two products were listed after we filed our complaint.) Our complaint is still under active investigation.

At this tipping point, we remain committed to eliminating products that will cause more harm than good during oil spill response. Why? Beyond the obvious, holding the oil industry accountable for multi-organ harm across body systems and species including humans from exposure to its products helps build pressure towards leaving the oil in the ground and transitioning to independence from fossil fuels.

In solidarity,

Ten Senate Democrats are accusing the Interior Department of using a routine-sounding policy review to lay the groundwork for stripping wilderness protections from nearly 200 million acres of public land. In a letter to Secretary Doug Burgum, Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and nine colleagues wrote that the review “undermines Congress’ role in wilderness management.”

The review, opened through three Federal Register notices in June, covers land managed by the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service, including up to 91.4 million acres at BLM alone, according to the Wilderness Society. The public comment period closes August 14.

Heinrich called the process unusual. “It is atypical for the Interior Department to conduct land management planning by asking for comment on its agencies’ general operating procedures,” he wrote, adding that it’s “really just a ploy to weaken protections for public lands,” pointing to the administration’s “obsession with development and disposal of public lands.”

Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda is only helping oil and gas companies

President Donald Trump promised to “cut your energy prices in half” within his first year in office. Instead, “energy dominance” has produced record profits for oil companies and higher gas prices for everyone else. Trump has used his power to cut the cost of drilling on public lands, while driving up the price of oil by waging war on Iran. Eight of the world’s largest oil companies made a combined $93 billion in profit in the second quarter of 2026, nearly double what those companies made last year and more than $1 billion in profit every single day. Read more in a new Westwise blog post on Substack by CWP’s Lilly Bock-Brownstein and Rachael Hamby.

Quick hits People are betting millions to predict wildfires. Congress wants to stop it

Outside

Opinion: Sportsmen should get a say on our public lands, that’s why we need the Local Input Act

Colorado Times Recorder

Bulldozing begins at Big Bend National Park for border wall construction

Washington Post

New Mexico delegation introduces bill to ban uranium mining in Chama Watershed

Source New Mexico

An Indigenous photographic history of America in pictures

The Guardian

White House asks Justice department to consider new reflecting-pool prosecution

Wall Street Journal

House Democrats seek records in dropped Reflecting Pool case against ex-Olympian

Washington Post

The Reflecting Pool haunts Doug Burgum

Axios DC

Quote of the day

The BLM used to be able to look at a nominated parcel, listen to the people who use it, and hold it back when leasing would, for example, impact elk or mule deer calving grounds, choke off a trailhead, or industrialize high-priority habitat. That discretion is gone. The oil company picks the parcel; the BLM is told to process the paperwork. End of story.”

—David A. Lien of Colorado Springs, Colorado Times Recorder

Picture This

@Interior

The monarch migration is about to begin. Along the way, they depend on native flowering plants to rest and refuel. Planting native wildflowers and milkweed in your yard or in your community is one simple way to help these remarkable travelers complete their journey.

Feature image: Rainbow Mountain Wilderness: Source: BLM Nevada, by Bob Wick/Flickr

The post Democrats call Interior wilderness policy review a ‘ploy’ appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

The oil industry just posted some of its best profits in years while Americans pay more at the pump

President Donald Trump promised to “cut your energy prices in half” within his first year in office using his “energy dominance” agenda. Instead, energy dominance has produced record profits for oil companies and higher gas prices for everyone else.

Eight of the world’s largest oil companies made a combined $93 billion in profit in the second quarter of 2026, nearly double what those companies made last year, and more than $1 billion in profit every single day. The increase in profits is connected to the US-Israeli war on Iran, which disrupted oil shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and pushed global oil prices above $126 per barrel at their peak.

ExxonMobil reported $14.5 billion in profit, its highest quarterly total in four years, while Chevron posted $12 billion, its highest quarterly profit in at least six years. Shell earned $9.8 billion, its second-highest quarterly profit ever, and Saudi Aramco topped the list at more than $33 billion.

US refiners also raked in the profits. Valero Energy reported $3.7 billion in net income, up from $714 million a year earlier and its most profitable quarter on record by earnings per share. HF Sinclair’s profit roughly quadrupled year-over-year, and PBF Energy swung from a loss to over $1 billion in profit.

None of this windfall is reaching consumers. The national average price for a gallon of gas was $4.01 on August 10, and prices are higher than a year ago in every state. Refiners say fuel inventories will be slow to rebuild, meaning the high prices are likely to stick around even as the price of crude oil drops.

Oil companies aren’t using their record profits to expand drilling or refining, either. ExxonMobil alone returned $9.4 billion to shareholders in the second quarter through dividends and stock buybacks, and Shell started a new multibillion-dollar buyback program of its own. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has pointed to record US energy production as evidence that the administration’s regulatory rollbacks are “unlocking the full potential of our domestic energy resources.” But record production and record profits have not translated into lower prices, expanded supply, or any clear benefit for American taxpayers.

In fact, Congress and the Trump administration are giving the oil and gas industry a tax break for drilling on public lands. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025, cut the onshore royalty rate from 16.67 percent back to 12.5 percent. Interior has also moved to make it cheaper to drill on public lands, proposing a rule that would cut cleanup bonds from $500,000 to $25,000 and shrink the public comment period on lease sales from 90 days to 10. Taxpayers for Common Sense estimates the royalty rate decrease alone has already cost the public $489 million, a figure it warns could climb into the billions as 2026 lease sales get underway.

Oil and gas production, Converse County, Wyoming. BLM Wyoming

This isn’t the “energy dominance” Americans were promised. Trump’s declaration of a “national energy emergency” was based on the need to bring down energy prices for Americans, arguing that inadequate domestic supply “causes and makes worse the high energy prices that devastate Americans.” His “Unleashing American Energy” executive order relied on that “energy emergency” to justify a number of policy actions ostensibly aimed at increasing energy production, presumably to increase domestic supply and bring prices down.

If there were an actual energy emergency, and if the Trump administration was serious about addressing it, the administration would have spent the past year and a half investing in a rapid build-out of inexpensive domestic energy sources like solar, wind, and battery storage. But the administration has actually done the opposite, putting up roadblocks to renewable energy development and paying developers nearly $2 billion in taxpayer funds to abandon offshore wind projects that were already underway. Meanwhile, the administration is doing everything it can to rush oil, gas, and coal projects by cutting corners on environmental reviews and avoiding public comment whenever it thinks it can get away with it. Interior’s current plan would compress reviews that once took up to two years into a single month, and cut the public comment period for projects expected to cause environmental harm down to about 10 days.

This strategy is working splendidly for oil and gas companies. For American families, it’s been a disaster that’s squeezing them when they’re already struggling with rising costs in all other areas of their lives. Adding insult to injury, oil and gas companies are locking Americans out of their public lands by nominating and leasing public lands they don’t intend to drill, tying up both the land itself and management agency resources with unserious nominations and leases. The real energy emergency is the oil and gas takeover of our national public lands at the expense of preserving some of America’s most valuable natural places.

The post Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda is only helping oil and gas companies appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Updated on August 11, 2026, to reflect the proposition name. Originally published on January 16, 2026.

For advocates working at the intersection of environmental protection and climate-smart growth, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) has long been a source of both pride and frustration. While it has been a critical tool to protect our natural and working lands, its procedural delays have often been used to stall projects essential to a low-carbon future: dense infill housing and transit-oriented development in our existing communities.

In July 2025, however, at the urging of Governor Newsom, the California legislature passed some of the most impactful changes to CEQA since its inception. Taken together, the two bills (AB 130 and SB 131) provide robust statutory CEQA exemptions for infill housing and housing element rezonings, require the state to map infill areas where exemptions would apply, and narrow the scope of the administrative record, helping to curtail anti-housing litigation.

Despite these monumental changes that address the barriers to critical infill development, California’s business lobby and sprawl developers were left unsatisfied. Now, they are proposing a ballot initiative that would make far more radical changes to the law. After gathering enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot, this is now called Proposition 45.

While the rhetoric of the measure (initially called Building an Affordable California Act, or BACA) seems to be aligned with urbanist goals and those of the broader abundance and affordability movements, the actual policy details and mechanics of the initiative—and the progress we’ve already achieved in the legislature last year—suggest that the costs it brings far outweigh any potential benefits.

Below, we outline seven reasons why the measure should be rejected (click to read more):

1. Major Reforms Have Already Been Enacted

For years, a primary objective for California’s urbanists was to stop the abuse of environmental law against projects that genuinely help the environment: dense, transit-oriented housing.
In a landmark shift for the state, that goal has largely been realized. Following years of advocacy by urbanists, the legislature passed a clean statutory CEQA exemption for infill housing. AB 130, which Greenbelt Alliance was proud to support, is already being utilized across California, allowing builders to move forward with climate-friendly housing in high-opportunity areas like Palo Alto or Beverly Hills without the threat of being endlessly delayed by the environmental review process. While there is room for technical refinements, the fundamental issue at hand—the misuse of environmental laws to delay environmentally-friendly housing projects—has largely been addressed.

2. Everything is “Essential”

As the saying goes, “the devil is in the details”, and that’s certainly true for the BACA initiative. While modest on the surface, BACA creates a completely new set of rules for what it calls “essential” projects. So what, exactly, is an “essential project”?

The list is incredibly broad. Under Article 2, Section 21013, “essential projects” include housing, water, transportation, clean energy, transmission, broadband, and healthcare infrastructure. In practice, this definition encompasses a wide range of large-scale developments. For example, new freeways and existing freeway expansions would qualify as “essential transportation” projects; large greenfield sprawl developments would be treated as “essential” housing projects; and new dams and reservoirs would qualify as “essential” water projects. The definition even includes all “related and ancillary infrastructure,” meaning that highway interchanges, utility extensions, and water pipelines that enable sprawl developments also receive streamlined approval. All of these are enormous projects in terms of size and scale, with major potential environmental impacts. Yet, just like an apartment building in an urban area, under BACA, they would qualify for a significantly truncated review process.

In effect, this new CEQA process mirrors the fundamental flaw of its predecessor. While the old system failed to exempt low or no-impact projects from excessive review, the new one errs in the opposite direction, fast-tracking high-risk developments with significant potential for harm.

3. All Timelines Are Not Created Equal

The BACA initiative imposes strict timelines for this new class of projects that it deems “essential”: the environmental review process can take no more than one year. On the surface, a one-year limit on an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) seems reasonable. And for certain projects, like an apartment building on a parking lot in downtown San Francisco, or a townhome development in an LA suburb, it would be.

However, the measure’s definition of “essential” includes highways, dams, large-scale subdivisions, and other major projects. The environmental review required for projects at this scale cannot be done in a single year. Surveying hundreds if not thousands (or even tens of thousands) of acres of undisturbed and undeveloped land for species nesting patterns and habitat, water pollution impacts, and other environmental concerns physically cannot be accomplished within the timeframe laid out in the initiative. By forcing these projects into such a condensed timeline, we will be creating a system that overlooks genuine environmental harm in favor of speed.

For projects with unambiguous environmental benefits, such as housing developments within already urbanized areas, such speed makes sense. Many of the project types considered by this measure do not have the same clear, unambiguous benefits.

4. Restrictive Alternatives

One of CEQA’s most critical tools for preventing environmental harm is its alternative analysis provision, which allows for the identification of better project locations and designs. Currently, CEQA requires agencies to analyze a “reasonable range of alternatives” that could reduce environmental impacts, including different sites, reduced intensity options, and designs that avoid sensitive resources. This is how agencies can say, “this housing should be built downtown on a parking lot instead of on farmland,” or “this highway expansion has an alternative transit solution.”

BACA restricts this to just three options: the proposed project, one alternative designed by the applicant themselves (which doesn’t even need to be at a different location), and “no project.” The applicant’s alternative can be a slightly modified version of their original proposal on the same site. This eliminates the core mechanism for steering projects away from environmentally sensitive locations toward more appropriate sites, exactly the tool needed to prevent sprawl, protect open space, and ensure development happens in the right places.

5. The Evidentiary Standard

Maybe the most radical change incorporated in the ballot measure is to CEQA’s standard of review. Right now, CEQA allows a lead agency (generally a city or county) to use its own discretion to explore project alternatives and negotiate environmental mitigations. BACA proposes to eliminate this by requiring that environmental impacts only be found significant if they violate objective, quantifiable standards already in existing law when the project was proposed, which doesn’t sound inherently unreasonable! 

However, the measure doesn’t actually require jurisdictions to adopt such standards; instead, it exploits their absence. If numerical thresholds don’t already exist for resources like oak woodlands, groundwater, or wildlife corridors, impacts to them essentially can’t be found significant regardless of severity. A genuine objective standards approach would mandate jurisdictions adopt protective thresholds and update them as science improves. This measure rewards weak standards, freezes them at application date, and prevents improvements based on new knowledge.

6. Ballot Box Permanence

Finally, one of the greatest flaws of the measure is its rigidity. Should it pass, BACA would require a 2/3rds vote of the legislature to amend.

California has a long, storied history with ballot box governance, where initiatives become impossible to adjust as new problems arise. The 2/3rds requirement virtually guarantees the law could never be changed, regardless of what issues may arise. An unchangeable measure, with foreseeable negative impacts for the state, may have lasting consequences for generations.

Some of the project types included in this measure, such as clean energy or transmission infrastructure, may benefit from the types of streamlining being considered if careful, targeted changes were made. Rather than a broad, clunky initiative that will be extremely difficult to change, we should advocate for those reforms through the legislative cleanup process already underway.

7. The Costs Are Just Too High

California faces converging affordability crises: insurers fleeing the state, utility rates climbing, and municipal budgets straining under unsustainable costs. All of these issues stem from the same source: decades of sprawling outward, often into fire-prone areas, leaving us with infrastructure we cannot afford to maintain and risks we cannot afford to insure.

BACA will accelerate these failures by trading short-term speed for permanent costs. By gutting CEQA’s alternatives analysis—the primary tool for steering projects away from costly, high-risk locations—this limits agencies to the developer’s preferred site, one alternative the developer designs themselves, and “no project.” It freezes environmental standards at the date of application, rewarding jurisdictions with weak protections. And it requires agencies to approve permits within strict timelines regardless of fiscal consequences, because most cities lack the quantitative standards BACA requires to find fiscal impacts “significant.”

The result: even if we build some things faster today, we’ll be paying the tab forever. Even more homes in fire zones will continue to destabilize our insurance markets. More infrastructure extensions will push up our utility rates. More sprawling subdivisions that generate less revenue than they cost to maintain will ensure even higher taxes. BACA promises affordability through speed but delivers the opposite: cheaper to build, but financially ruinous to sustain.

At a time when people are struggling to make ends meet, and when the federal government is doing all it can to roll back our environmental protections, the last thing we need is to double down on the failed policies we have tried for decades and know do not work.

Proposition 45 will hurt the environment and your wallet.

Greenbelt Alliance strongly opposes Proposition 45 and urges voters to vote NO on 45 this November.

The post Chamber-Backed CEQA Initiative Is A Proposition Californians Can’t Afford: No on Prop 45 appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

North Carolina regulators are weighing Duke Energy’s rate-hike requests that could raise power bills for customers across the state.

By Autumn Bracey

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson said he will not sign a proposed settlement in the Duke Energy Progress rate case that would raise residential electric bills by about 6.8% over the next two years.

The utility’s original filing had sought an 18.1% increase on residential rates over two years. Duke announced a settlement last week with the North Carolina Public Staff and other parties, and in testimony before the North Carolina Utilities Commission, Kendal Bowman, North Carolina president for Duke Energy Progress and Duke Energy Carolinas, said the residential rate increase would now be 6.8% over two years.

“Duke brought down their rate increase to 6.8%, but that’s still too high for families and still more than the company needs to cover its investments,” Jackson said. “We’re not signing it.”

…

Regulators hold hearings

On Tuesday, the North Carolina Utilities Commission held hearings on the proposed increase.

WCNC spoke with NC WARN, a nonprofit that educates the public about Duke Energy’s practices. The group says that while customers have seen some wins with lower rates in the past, the new requests are a reminder of why it’s important to keep paying attention.

“I think it’s really important we question the reason for these rate increases,” Sara Heilman, clean energy strategist for NC WARN, said. “We understand the connection and correlation between requested rate increases and Duke Energy’s business model, which really serves to profit its executives and shareholders at the expense of affordability for North Carolinians.”

Rising bill despite falling usage

Heilman also pointed out that per-capita electricity use has actually declined over time, which she says makes it even more important for policymakers to scrutinize the data before approving any rate hikes.

“Our allies at the Energy and Policy Institute show customers, even using the same amount of electricity over the same years, are still seeing increases in their power bills,” Heilman said. “It really has a lot to do with Duke Energy’s investments in fossil fuels, like fracked-gas power plants, and the connection between those investments and the affordability crisis.”

Continue reading

The post NC AG Jeff Jackson rejects Duke Energy rate settlement, calls 6.8% hike ‘still too high’ — WCNC Charlotte appeared first on NC WARN.

By Renee Umsted

As temperatures in the Triangle soar, Duke Energy customers are noticing higher bills.

On social media, customers claim they’re not using more energy, or that they’re trying to use less. But they still say that bills are getting higher each month, and are more expensive than this time last year.

Are high temperatures to blame for expensive energy bills?

It’s summertime. It’s hot and humid. Your air conditioning system is working harder to cool your home.

And if you ask Duke Energy, that’s the story.

“Cooling demand across North Carolina was 43% above normal by July 4 following multiple periods of extreme heat, according to federal weather data,” the Charlotte-based company wrote in an Aug. 7 news release. “For many customers, increased air-conditioning use is the primary reason energy use and bills may be higher than normal.”

Is it Duke Energy’s fault?

But there are other factors to blame for higher bills, said Sara Heilman, clean energy strategist at NC WARN, a nonprofit that advocates for a transition to clean energy and promotes energy and climate justice.

“I think the most central thing contributing to rising electric bills is that there is a direct correlation between profit for Duke Energy executives and investors, and rising costs for North Carolinians,” Heilman said in a video interview.

Duke Energy reported $5 billion in profits last year, The News & Observer previously reported. Last week, it reported its strongest-ever second quarter (April through June), with more than $1 billion in net income.

When the utility builds new infrastructure such as a power plant or high-voltage power line, customers pay for the cost of the project, plus an additional percentage as profit, Heilman said.

“There’s this incentive for Duke to be building as much as possible, even when it’s not necessarily needed,” Heilman said.

Continue reading

The post Your electric bill is up. Is it because of the heat or Duke Energy? — The News & Observer appeared first on NC WARN.

The author, Betsy Pfeiffer, was a UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy (GSPP) Fellow and Greenbelt Alliance research collaborator between February and May 2026.

How do we help Californians understand that building homes in existing communities is good for commutes, wallets, and the environment? Over the first half of 2026, I had the opportunity to work with Greenbelt Alliance to identify existing housing and climate narrative strategies and develop guidance to increase impact.

To understand how Greenbelt Alliance can communicate this link more effectively to Californians, I consolidated existing research, recent polling done by EMC Research, and stakeholder input into a best practices playbook for communicating about climate and housing in California.

According to polling from 2025, California voters’ top five issues are cost of living, housing, crime, traffic, and climate change. Local land-use policies that prioritize infill development can address four out of five of those issues, but that same poll also showed that most voters don’t understand that connection. When asked what local governments could do about climate change, only 3% of respondents said housing policy, and a third of all respondents had no answer at all.

California has historically prioritized housing development on undeveloped land outside of existing communities—known as sprawl. These policy choices have normalized long commutes while driving up the cost of living, increasing traffic, and undermining Californians’ health and quality of life. These land use patterns also lead to more Californians living in areas that are vulnerable to wildfire and floods, which fuels insurance pressures that drive up housing costs statewide. In turn, pollution and global warming gases from so many long commutes are contributing to climate change.

While the links between housing and climate change are clear to many of us working in the field, they can be difficult to talk about in a way that resonates with the general public. There is a growing body of research on the most effective ways to communicate about the environment and housing separately, but little guidance exists on how to connect them.

Day-to-Day Life Resonates

The single most consistent finding from the research, the polling, and the advocates I interviewed is that messages rooted in tangible, everyday benefits outperform everything else. Quality-of-life messages combine those top four concerns from the poll—cost of living, housing, affordability, and climate change—by emphasizing that more housing in existing neighborhoods means less time in traffic, less money spent on gas, and less impact on the environment.

Shorter commutes, walkable neighborhoods, and living closer to family are messaging winners.

The Environment Belongs in The Story

Environmental messages poll well in California, and research suggests that pairing them with quality-of-life framings strengthens the narrative, but the right environmental angle varies by audience.

Urban Californians, for example, seem to respond most to framings that treat care for the environment or fighting climate change as broad values, not aligned with specific actions.

When speaking to rural and suburban residents, conservation messages, in contrast, may be more effective. And framing matters—”Protecting open space” earned strong support, but “stopping sprawl” did not. This difference reflects a broader best practice principle to link messages to existing concerns and keep the framing proactive and solutions-oriented.

Developing a positive framing for stories about disaster avoidance is a bigger challenge. Fire and flood hazards are among the most effective ways to connect housing and climate change, but to work as a housing development narrative, these messages need to execute a pivot that can be difficult to pull off. Moving from why “not to build” in certain places to “why to build” in others can be difficult to communicate effectively and simply in a single message. For now, wildfire threats and insurance pressures seem to land most powerfully with rural and suburban Californians, but urban residents are beginning to share those concerns as climate impacts reach more of the state.

The research demonstrates that quality of life framing applies broadly, but a more nuanced approach is needed when talking to urban versus suburban/rural audiences. Additionally, staying safe from fire and flood is a promising narrative for all Californians, but the messaging needs to be refined and tested. Finally, simpler is better: trying to combine all of these into a single message risks diluting the impact of each.

The Big Picture

Greenbelt Alliance and allies have the opportunity to shift the current public perspective on both housing and the environment to emphasize that housing is a climate solution. The quality of life plus environment pairing has strong evidential support, but it has yet to be tested. And while stakeholder input suggests that separating audiences into urban versus suburban/rural is a reasonable starting point, it’s an inference rather than a tested finding. 

Encouragingly, Californians already care about what infill housing can deliver: shorter commutes, lower costs, walkable neighborhoods, land protection, and a healthier climate.

Header Photo: View from Berkeley Hills. By Chris LaBasco Photography

The post Build California Here appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

With more than two decades of advocacy efforts and many twists and turns, the site known as Tesla Park in eastern Alameda County needs protection once again. 

In 2021, Governor Gavin Newsom, the Legislature, and the California Department of Parks and Recreation reached a $31 million agreement to protect the Alameda-Tesla Expansion Area from off-highway vehicle (OHV) recreation on the land.

We are now asking our supporters to reach out to legislators to ask them to support establishing Tesla as a State Natural Reserve. We need your urgent help because State Parks plans to release the general plan and Environmental Impact Report by the end of the year. We cannot let Tesla’s irreplaceable resource values be damaged by short-term thinking. Send an email to Assemblymember Bauer-Kahan and Senator McNerney in a few easy steps using this action alert!

Tesla has natural and cultural resources of statewide significance that exceed the statute for Reserve classification, from extraordinary biodiversity to an essential critical linkage wildlife corridor to important historic and prehistoric cultural resources. Learn more here. 

Historic Fight

With the mobilization of a coalition of organizations, led by the Save Tesla Park campaign, Greenbelt Alliance helped fight this battle for Tesla Park—and won. The land has rare ecological value and contains an abundance of highly sensitive natural and cultural resources. Learn more here. 

This agreement was part of the 2021 Natural Resources Budget Trailer Bill AB 155/SB 155, which ended plans to expand the Carnegie State Vehicular Recreation Area (SVRA) into the 3,100-acre Tesla Park and provides resources to reallocate this high-environmental-impact activity to a different, more appropriate location. 

For at least two decades, Tesla Park was at risk of becoming a destructive off-highway vehicle/motorized recreation park as an expansion project for the Carnegie SVRA. In 2019, Governor Newsom vetoed legislation that would have preserved Tesla Park, and in June 2021, threatened to line-item veto a Tesla Park protection item in the budget unless it was removed. Ultimately, the Tesla budget language was passed.

Now, this land will become a new unit of the state park system, under the control of State Parks and the Parks and Recreation Commission. A planning process is currently being conducted to determine the classification of Tesla Park as a unit of the park system and its management and use plan, with $1 million allocated to the planning process. 

Greenbelt Alliance and the coalition to Save Tesla Park are working to have Tesla classified as a State Natural Reserve, which can provide low-intensity public access, education, and enjoyment, including hiking, nature appreciation, cultural resource interpretation and tours,
and ensure that its irreplaceable natural and cultural resources are protected forever.

With information from Friends of Tesla Park.

The post Tell Legislators to Make Tesla Park a Natural Reserve appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

Restoration of the Broadford Bridge oil site in West Sussex is due to begin this summer, officials have confirmed.

The Broadford Bridge oil site during operation. Photo: Weald Action Group

The site, near Billingshurst, is subject to two council planning enforcement notices after the operator, a subsidiary of UK Oil & Gas plc (UKOG), failed to return the well pad to farmland.

Broadford Bridge has had no planning permission since March 2024 when West Sussex County Council refused an application for a fifth extension of consent. Before that, the site had been mothballed since 2018.

An operation to plug and abandon two Broadford Bridge wells ended in February 2026.

But the well pad, fencing, gates and soil bunds remain, despite a planning condition requiring the operator to return the site to farmland. West Sussex County Council took enforcement action in January 2025 and February 2026.

A council spokesperson said today:

“Two Breach of Condition Notices (BCNs) were served on 13 February 2026. These remain live and require the operator to remove all associated infrastructure (including buildings, plant, machinery, fencing, gates and other structures) and restore the site in accordance with the approved restoration scheme by 31 December 2026.

“The operator has advised that the intention is for restoration works to commence this summer with a view to achieving restoration by the required date.”

Restoration includes work to clean and remove surface stone layers, take-up impermeable membranes, in-fill drainage ditches and regrade the soil from surrounding earth bunds to return the site to its original appearance and use.

Access application Access track application plan. Source: WSCC/036/26

The restoration timeframe emerged in a new planning application for Broadford Bridge (WSCC/036/26).

The application, to keep the site access track, was submitted on behalf of Sheila Francis by the Zetland planning consultancy which has previously worked for UKOG companies.

It revealed: “the well site is to be restored (Summer-Autumn 2026)”.

The application seeks to retain the 450m track to the well site for “agricultural purposes” and the junction of the track with the B2133 Adversane Lane. The application does not seek to retain the former well pad area and fencing around it.

Comments on the access track application can be made online. The deadline for comments is 20 August 2026. A decision is expected by 21 September 2026.