** Tracker monitors handouts to oil and gas industry during the pandemic
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Friday, June 12, 2020
California oil and gas operations. Photo by John Ciccarelli, BLM. ([link removed])

The Center for Western Priorities released a new tracker ([link removed]) keeping tabs on Trump administration handouts to the oil and gas industry ([link removed]) since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. After a decade of racking up immense debt ([link removed]) and rarely turning a profit, oil and gas corporations were briefly hammered by the COVID-19 pandemic and a global oil glut. Now, oil prices have rebounded, but the Interior Department is bending over backwards to continue bailing out the industry—lowering royalty rates and granting lease suspensions, sidestepping their responsibility to provide taxpayers a fair return for publicly-owned oil and gas.

The new tracker finds that the Interior Department has so far granted 114 royalty reductions and 359 lease suspensions to oil and gas corporations, while denying very few requests. Center for Western Priorities Policy Director Jesse Prentice-Dunn said, "Handouts to Big Oil during this pandemic make it clear that there is no end to the lengths this administration will go to give oil companies what they want.”

The new tracker ([link removed]) will be updated weekly with the latest information available on oil and gas royalty relief and lease suspensions as reported by the Interior Department in federal databases.


** Great American Outdoors Act headed to senate floor for debate next week
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The United States Senate filed cloture on the Great American Outdoors Act ([link removed]) on Wednesday, advancing the bipartisan legislation that would provide permanent funding to the Land and Water Conservation Fund and direct billions toward addressing the national parks maintenance backlog. Senators took a vote ([link removed]) in the early hours of Friday morning to keep the legislation moving toward debate by the senate next week.
Quick hits


** Study shows rattlesnakes have friends, too
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Arizona Republic ([link removed])


** Great American Outdoors Act advances toward final passage
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The Hill ([link removed]) | Roll Call ([link removed]) | E&E News ([link removed]) | Grand Junction Daily Sentinel ([link removed]) | Durango Herald ([link removed])


** The Navajo Nation's complicated entanglements with coal
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Forbes ([link removed])


** Tracker: Trump administration oil and gas handouts during global pandemic
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Center for Western Priorities ([link removed])


** Renegade Utah operator fined for unauthorized mining of federal coal
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Salt Lake Tribune ([link removed])


** Firefighters prepare for above average risk, tactical challenges caused by coronavirus
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Bloomberg Law ([link removed]) | E&E News ([link removed])


** Opinion: Passing the bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act will benefit the environment and the economy
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The Hill ([link removed])


** Scientists experience "ecological grief" over the loss of species
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CU Boulder Today ([link removed])
Quote of the day
Frontline communities are under attack from multiple emergencies happening at the same time. Black communities are dealing with the systemic racism that has infected the policing in our communities that is literally choking us to death. The rolling back of environmental rules and regulations has us gasping for air due to the cumulative public health impacts from the burning of fossil fuels in our communities.”
—Mustafa Santiago Ali ([link removed]) , Vice President of Environmental Justice, Climate, and Community Revitalization at the National Wildlife Federation
Picture this


** @forestservice ([link removed])
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The USDA Forest Service celebrates National Great Outdoors Month! Wherever you go, whichever forest or grassland you visit, please remember to #RecreateResponsibly ([link removed]) . Let's us know in the comments if you saw anything beautiful out there. [link removed] ([link removed]) #NGOM ([link removed])

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