Marshall Helmberger
ELY In a wide-ranging press conference last week, representatives of the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters outlined their plans to block the proposed Twin Metals copper-nickel mine and achieve permanent protection from sulfide mining on 234,000 acres of the Rainy River watershed located upstream of the BWCAW.
Using a strategy that combines political advocacy and lobbying, building coalitions with the business community and outdoor enthusiasts, and litigation where necessary, the campaign has laid the groundwork to advance their objectives under a new administration and Congress that appears friendlier to environmental protection and sustainable economics than was the case for the past four years.
The Trump administration had claimed the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act barred the intentional hunting of birds, not unintentional deaths caused by industrial activities.
(CN) The Biden administration voided a Trump-era legal opinion Monday regarding migratory birds and protections that have been in place for over a century.
The Department of Interior reversed legal interpretation by its former top lawyer Daniel Jorjani in 2017 that parties could not be held responsible for the accidental deaths of birds, even in deaths related to a chemical spill, oil and gas operations, power lines or wind turbines.
The Trump administration argued the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, passed in 1918, meant to cover the intentional hunting of migratory birds and was not intended to hold industry and private actors responsible for unintentional deaths.
Image NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources –“North Carolina’s Must-See Bird Migration” webpage
The Interior Department on Monday revoked a Trump administration policy that would have undercut a century-old law protecting migratory birds.
The move strengthens federal regulators’ authority to enforce the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, a 1918 law that allows the government to prosecute polluters whose actions are responsible for the deaths of about 1,100 protected bird species.
An Interior spokesperson said Monday the department rescinded a 2017 legal opinion from then-Interior Solicitor Daniel Jorjani that held the department couldn’t enforce the law unless the bird deaths were intentional.
Biden Team Tosses Trump-Era Opinion That Gave Industry A Free Pass To Kill Birds huffingtonpost.ca - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from huffingtonpost.ca Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Published: Monday, February 1, 2021
Stack of file folders. Photo credit: Wesley Tingey/Unsplash
A new report found the Biden Interior Department has inherited a Freedom of Information Act backlog that s tripled over the last four years. Wesley Tingey/Unsplash
The Biden administration s Interior Department leaders face a Freedom of Information Act request backlog that has tripled over the last four years, underscoring the serious public records management challenges ahead.
The department s latest quarterly report issued last Friday showed an overall FOIA backlog of 4,265 requests for the period between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 2020.
For the comparable three-month period in late 2016, at the end of the Obama administration, Interior s FOIA backlog stood at 1,364.