Preservation

At a work session in Augusta, the Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry voted to approve LD 1798, the LePage administration bill that would roll back 40 years of protections for the North Woods. Gov. Paul LePage met with Republican committee members earlier today to insist that they fall in line.

Citizens concerned with the fate of Maine’s natural heritage gathered in Augusta today to urge their legislators to protect Maine’s North Woods and vote against legislation that would undermine Maine’s Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC). Environment Maine, a statewide environmental advocacy organization, collected the 17,000 messages from every state legislative district and hosted the event at the State House for citizens to deliver the messages to their legislators in the Maine House of Representatives.

A federal judge in Maine ruled today that an Endangered Species Act (ESA) lawsuit brought by conservation groups against Brookfield Power U.S. Asset Management, LLC (Brookfield) and an affiliate, Hydro Kennebec, LLC, can go forward.

Thanks to a huge outpouring of public support from Environment Washington members, we were able to convince our leaders in Washington to expand Mt. Rainier National Park and protect the Carbon River Valley rainforest.

Today at the Arizona State Capitol, more than 100 people from 25 different legislative districts and representing more than 20 groups met with their state legislators in support of environmental protection and conservation programs.

Environment New Jersey fully supports the initial decision by the National Park Service to recommend the no build option of the Susquehanna Roseland powerline through the heart of the Delaware Water Gap.

Today Interior Secretary Ken Salazar protected the Grand Canyon from toxic mining. After more than 2 years of environmental analysis and receiving nearly 300,000 public comments from the American people, environmental and conservation groups, the outdoor recreation industry, mayors and tribal leaders, Secretary Salazar withdrew more than 1 million acres of land around the canyon from new mining claims for the next twenty years.