Five environmental groups are suing the Trump administration over recently announced plans to open as many as 1.7 million acres in Western Colorado to drilling, fracking and mining exploration.
The lawsuit, announced Wednesday, occurs after a week of administration decisions to loosen restrictions on methane flaring and drillers’ royalty payments and a plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration.
“We have to end fossil fuel extraction to have any chance of leaving our children a livable planet, and we should start on public lands,” said Diana Dascalu-Joffe, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We hope the courts force this administration to acknowledge science and the climate crisis.”
As Democrats met for their convention this week, they staked out a platform calling for the reinstatement of environmental protections that President Donald Trump’s administration has undone and an end to all oil and gas leases on public lands.
Oil and gas leases have become a growing point of contention between the Trump administration and Democrats as former Vice President Joe Biden shores up party support ahead of the presidential election.
But a disagreement between progressive and moderate Democrats has broken out as the factions debate fossil fuel subsidies.
On Tuesday, the Democratic National Committee dropped a provision of the party platform that called for an end of the $20 billion in federal subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, saying the provision got on the platform draft because of a procedural error.
Activists expressed frustration with the change, saying the party’s governing body was softening its stance ahead of the election.
“The decision to drop a provision calling for the end of federal fossil fuel subsidies is demotivating to voters who care deeply about the climate,” said Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, executive director of the Western Environmental Law Center. “I understand the importance of structuring climate policies to invest in American jobs and innovation, but subsidizing fossil fuel corporations rather than investing in workers isn’t the right way to go about it. It suggests the Democrats care more about corporations than climate change or workers.”
In response to questions from The Durango Herald, a spokesperson for former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who is running to unseat Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., said he supported ending oil and gas leases on public lands and ending fossil fuel subsidies.
Hickenlooper doesn’t support an immediate fracking ban, but he has said publicly he hoped to make it “obsolete.”
“Twice communities tried to ban fracking and the Colorado Supreme Court found it unconstitutional, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it obsolete,” Hickenlooper said in June.
On Wednesday night, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham spoke virtually at the DNC about climate issues. She said New Mexico was “laying the roadmap” for renewable energy and promised action on climate under a Biden administration.
“We know time is running out to save our planet,” Lujan Grisham said. “We have the chance this November to end two existential crises: the Trump presidency and the environmental annihilation he represents. We have the chance this November to attack the climate crisis, invest in green 21st-century jobs, and embrace the clean energy revolution our country, our young people are crying out for and the leadership the rest of the world is waiting for.”
Jacob Wallace is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C.
