** Trump's Interior Department continues environmental rollbacks
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Wednesday, October 21, 2020
Center for Western Priorities ([link removed])

With just three months remaining in the Trump administration’s first term, an ongoing tracker ([link removed]) by the Center for Western Priorities finds the Interior Department continues to advance environmental rollbacks despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The tracker, launched in January 2020 and based on federal websites and databases, finds 90 policies ([link removed]) Interior is seeking to implement, including efforts to expand fossil fuel development on public lands and further weaken protections for wildlife.

Of those 90 policies, the department has finalized seventeen, including weakening air quality standards for offshore drilling and finalizing land use plans to allow increased development on land cut from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. The analysis also identified 36 proposed or completed U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service actions to remove or downgrade protections for plants and animals under the Endangered Species Act.

"With just three months left, Secretary Bernhardt, a former oil lobbyist, is racing to shred every conservation policy he can. The question now is how much they can get done,” said ([link removed][UNIQID]&u=6b3f59dc19c07727b0b196979&id=7f5c9d8f08&utm_source=1500+CWP+List+Daily+Clips+and+Updates&utm_campaign=a671081de1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_10_20_08_00&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4369a4e737-a671081de1-84302525) Center for Western Priorities Policy Director Jesse Prentice-Dunn. “The only silver lining is that, in their rush to grant drilling and mining corporations favors, the Trump administration has finalized flimsy regulations and implemented changes via means that have been routinely slapped down by the courts. Recent rulings that oust William Perry Pendley from the BLM and throw out extraction-friendly land management plans implemented by him demonstrate the unstable legal footing of Trump’s Interior Department."


** Mega-fires predicted by scientists are arriving early
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Scientists predicted climate change would fuel the kind of devastating wildfires that the West has seen this year. However, researchers did not expect to see mega-fires this soon ([link removed]) . Instead, they anticipated seeing fires on the scale of 2020 emerging over the course of the next 80 years, demonstrating that climate change-heightened disasters may be arriving sooner than anticipated.

As climate change continues to exacerbate wildfire dangers, new types of fire behavior have emerged that aren't seen in historical records. The wildfire models that scientists have developed aren't prepared for a rapidly changing world. ([link removed]) Rare events are by definition difficult to model due to the fact that there are fewer events to learn from and build off of.

David Saah, an environmental scientist at the University of San Francisco and a leader of the Pyregence Consortium, a team developing new wildfire models, said ([link removed]) , “You know how we keep saying climate change is going to change everything? We’re there, we’re in it (and) we don’t know how to quantify it. We’re trying to figure it out.”
Quick hits


** New homes on the range: Weary city dwellers escape to the West, creating a property gold rush
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Washington Post ([link removed]) | Ravalli Republic ([link removed]) | Bozeman Daily Chronicle ([link removed]) | Idaho Statesman ([link removed]) | Jackson Hole News&Guide
([link removed]) | Wall Street Journal ([link removed])


** What fuels the West's infernos
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Washington Post ([link removed])


** Colorado's unprecedented fires show climate close at hand as national forests close in five Front Range counties, impacting hunters and recreation
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CBS News ([link removed]) | Vox ([link removed]) | Colorado Sun ([link removed]) | Colorado Public Radio ([link removed]) | Denver Post [Closures]
([link removed]) | Colorado Sun [Closures] ([link removed]) | Sky-Hi News [Closures] ([link removed]) | CBS [Hunters] ([link removed]) | Montrose Daily Press [Hunters]
([link removed])


** Drought in western U.S. biggest in years and predicted to worsen during winter, puts farmers and ranchers on climate front lines
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Washington Post ([link removed]) | Colorado Public Radio [Farmers & Ranchers] ([link removed])


** For many Colorado voters, climate is personal and pushing them at the polls
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Colorado Public Radio ([link removed])


** Bears, whales and wolverines: the species imperiled by Trump's war on the environment
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Guardian ([link removed])


** Opinion: We must mobilize to protect 30x30 to prevent a lonely earth
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Scientific American ([link removed])


** Opinion: Preparing for dark times in a mountain town
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New York Times ([link removed])
Quote of the day
We can conclude with great certainty that impacts of these climate-driven threats are accelerated or are happening much sooner than we thought."

—Wade Crowfoot, California Natural Resources Agency secretary, E&E News ([link removed])
Picture this


** @N ([link removed]) IFC_Fire ([link removed])
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What is a #FireDependentEcosystem ([link removed]) ? This week, we’re learning about them and the importance of natural wildfire to keep ecosystems healthy. More: [link removed] ([link removed]) #FireYear2020 ([link removed])

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