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posted by janrinok on Wednesday March 04 2020, @05:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the law-is-the-law dept.

According to reporting at Common Dreams:

Environmental advocates cheered a federal judge's ruling Thursday that voided oil and gas leases on roughly one million acres of public lands and rejected a Trump administration policy that accelerated extraction of the fossil fuels.

"The judge confirmed that it's illegal to silence the public to expand fossil-fuel extraction," said Taylor McKinnon, a senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity.

The lawsuit centered on a 2018 memoradum, "No. 2018-034," issued by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an agency of the Interior Department. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt is a former oil and gas lobbyist.

Also key was that the areas in question are habitat for the greater sage grouse, whose numbers are in decline.

[...]Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald E. Bush said BLM was "arbitrary and capricious" in issuing the new policy, and said the agency clearly sought to mute public input.

The "BLM jettisoned prior processes, practices, and norms in favor of changes that emphasized economic maximization—to the detriment, if not outright exclusion, of pre-decisional opportunities for the public to contribute to the decision-making process affecting the management of public lands," he wrote.

"The agency's administrative record," Bush continued, "reveals no analysis that would explain or justify the transition" from the Obama-era policy to the new one "and the resulting curtailment of the public's involvement in oil and gas leasing decisions on public land."

The administration's shift appears to be "a mechanism for unharnessing prior constraints upon oil and gas leasing by specifically reducing or eliminating public involvement in the oil and gas leasing process because such public involvement hindered the oil and gas production industry," he added.


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  • (Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Wednesday March 04 2020, @10:56PM (3 children)

    by Barenflimski (6836) on Wednesday March 04 2020, @10:56PM (#966734)

    Where did I bash Trump? This Trump Derangement Syndrome must be a projection in your case.

    I'm not going to argue about the numbers. I'm not talking politics. It is pretty clear what I'm talking about in response to your partisan mumbo-jumbo.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @01:47AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @01:47AM (#966786)

    Classic...

    Through some shit numbers out. Then claim it's not about the numbers.
    Make a deliberate political statement, using your shit numbers. Then claim you're not talking politics.
    Finally, resort to name calling when you've been called out for your shit numbers.

    I'll say it again. +5 insightful my ass.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @04:28PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @04:28PM (#966967)

      Trump is a fuckhead criminal who is out in a few months. DEAL WITH IT

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @07:12PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @07:12PM (#967042)

        Don't be so certain, if Biden is the only option for liberals you might find a rather significant amount of 3rd party votes again. At this point I'm starting to side with "burn it all down" that Trump represents. Between the neolib old Democrats and false info believing Republicans I don't see a way forward until those groups really suffer for their stupidity.

        Voting for Biden is a status quo vote, and frankly I don't like the current state of affairs in the US. Wealth disparity, pay to win, mass surveillance, mass corruption. As a country if we can't even handle a criminal president so blatant as Trump then things need to collapse.