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While President-elect Biden prepares a flurry of executive actions to protect the environment when he takes office, the Trump administration is similarly racing the clock to finish a long list of environmental rollbacks in the next ten weeks.
The Center for Western Priorities just released an updated tracker that identifies ten public lands and wildlife protections that could be erased or diminished before President Trump leaves office. The list includes seismic testing and offering oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as well as finalizing 20-year management plans to expand drilling and mining on public lands in at least four states.
How Indigenous voters swung Arizona
With Joe Biden leading by roughly 15,000 votes in Arizona, Indigenous voters may turn out to be the voting bloc that put the President-elect over the top. High Country News notes that voter precincts on the Navajo Nation ranged from 60 to 90 percent for Biden, and in some Tohono O'Odham precincts, Biden won 98 percent of the vote. The unified tribal turnout is a strong repudiation of the Trump administration's anti-Indigenous policies, which included shrinking Bears Ears National Monument and blowing up sacred O'Odham land near the Arizona-Mexico border.
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Environmental laws aren't negotiable. These are laws that have to be complied with, and that isn't something that BLM has remotely done thus far. Will they continue to try and do this? Hopefully not. But if they do, we think that they're really out of step with both the law and frankly with what the American people expect after a presidential election.”
