** Bernhardt’s ticking clock
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2020
Center for Western Priorities ([link removed])
With less than one year left in the Trump administration’s first term, the Interior Department has a long list of policy changes it is seeking to enact, with major ramifications for our public lands. The Center for Western Priorities' new tracker, “Unfinished Business ([link removed]) ,” identified 74 policies in the works, which would further weaken protections for wildlife and expand fossil fuel development on public lands.
“The clock is ticking on the Trump administration's first term, and Interior Secretary [David] Bernhardt knows it,” Center for Western Priorities Policy Director Jesse Prentice-Dunn told E&E News ([link removed]) . “Policy changes in the works show that the former oil lobbyist is doing everything in his power to expand drilling and mining while reducing protections for wildlife.”
The Interior Department is also seeking to remove and downgrade protections from plants and animals on the Endangered Species List, with 17 actions already underway, and dozens more identified by the Office of Management and Budget.
Quick hits
** After school lockouts and flunked inspections, Colorado eyes oil refinery crackdown
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Westword ([link removed])
** Toxic waste from oil and gas wells are contaminating communities across America
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Rolling Stone ([link removed])
** Interior Dept. joins with conservation groups to ask court to overturn oil lease in Badger-Two Medicine area
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E&E News ([link removed]) | Montana Public Radio ([link removed])
** Research reveals humans are now the leading cause of wildfires in the US
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Sacramento Bee ([link removed])
** After years of work by volunteeers, Park Service sends Utah rock art nomination back to the drawing board
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KUNR ([link removed])
** BLM clarifies that drilling pact with Colorado doesn't affect state, federal legal authority
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Grand Junction Daily Sentinel ([link removed])
** Colorado gypsum mine eyes 50-year expansion
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Vail Daily ([link removed])
** Utah scientists study role of tiny potato in Ancestral Puebloan diets
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San Juan Record ([link removed])
Quote of the day
All of the pollution, all of the issues that they’re facing, it’s not something that you’re going to see in Cherry Creek or in Highlands Ranch. Throughout this country, historically, we have put these types of industrial facilities near poorer communities, because generally speaking, they don’t have as much advantage when it comes to reaching their legislators and speaking out.”
—Sunni Benoit, president of 350 Colorado ([link removed])
Picture this
Eric Anderson's game camera captured this first confirmed image ([link removed]) of a gray wolf west of Highway 62 in Jackson County, Oregon. A wolf biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said the tail position, ears, and teeth clearly show a gray wolf. Gray wolves have been spotted throughout Southern Oregon.
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