G2. Local Greens

The Interior department is blocking 133 National Park Service agreements with outside partners, holding up $25.9 million in funding for parks. These blocked agreements are available to view in a new interactive map from the Center for Western Priorities. Each agreement on the map lists the park or office that requested it, the partner that would have done the work, the dollar amount, and the National Park Service’s own written statement of what disapproval means for that site.

Interior disapproved 140 agreements on August 7 at 61 parks, offices, and programs in all seven National Park Service regions, as the Washington Post reported earlier this month. A handful have since been appealed, and 133 remain disapproved. The work they would have funded includes fire preparedness, hazardous tree removal, archaeological surveys, endangered species recovery, trail crews, and seasonal staffing.

Parks and their partners had already secured the money through congressional appropriations, existing federal programs, and internal funding. Interior’s review was the final step before the agreements could be signed and the money released. Interior told the Washington Post it had disapproved agreements with groups “actively working against the best interests of the American people and the priorities of this administration.” NPS staff reported they received no explanation beyond a note in the records reading “Disapproved by DOI.”

“Every one of these projects had its funding secured, and parks were counting on the work getting done. Blocking these agreements did not save a dollar. It pushed the work down the road and likely made it even more costly in the future,” said Kate Groetzinger, Center for Western Priorities communications director. “At Joshua Tree, for example, national park staff wrote that without approval for their projects, wildfires there will be larger and cost more to fight.”

Interior plans National Park Service overhaul

The Interior department’s reorganization of the National Park Service could begin rolling out in phases before the end of the year, according to internal draft documents viewed by Politico and previously reported on by the Washington Sun. The plan would reorganize parks into “hubs,” with senior officials overseeing construction, visitor services, cultural resources, and science for surrounding “spoke” parks. Leaked documents released by Wes Siler‘s Newsletter earlier this week show it would eliminate the agency’s seven regional directors and roughly 1,100 management positions. The draft documents say the changes will not require layoffs “at least in the short term.”

Quick hits Two decades of travel management decisions on verge of reversal

Grist | Mountain Journal | More Than Just Parks [map]

Two pilots killed in helicopter crash while fighting Yosemite wildfire

New York Times | Wildfire Today | The Guardian | Fox Weather | ABC30

Inside the long and deliberate collapse of America’s public land funding

Outdoor Life

Nevada is suing over Colorado River regulations. There could be impacts for Colorado

Colorado Sun

Scientists link fossil fuel producers to the West’s worsening water shortages

Yale Climate Connections

US judge declines to block transfer of wildlife refuge land to SpaceX

The Guardian | Border Report

Opinion: It’s time to engage

RE:PUBLIC

Poll shows majority of Arizonans are against eliminating national monument lands

KTAR

Quote of the day

The budgets that are being put forward, along with the DOGEing that happened to our public land employees — that is being done to break the agencies. These aren’t normal cuts. These are drastic cuts.”

—Land Tawney, co-chair of American Hunters & Anglers, Outdoor Life

Picture This
@nationalparkservice

It’s fall y’all!

The leaves are changing, temperatures are cooling (not for everyone, we know), and somewhere in the distance, you can already hear the faint, unmistakable strains of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” being defrosted from its annual cryogenic chamber.

Wait. Hold up. Give fall its due! As of today, in fact. It’s the official first day of fall, otherwise known as the autumnal equinox, the yearly occasion when humanity briefly remembers that the Earth is, in fact, tilted.

Fall is a great time to experience our national parks. The trees put on a spectacular display of color, the air gets crisp, and Fat Bear Week kicks off, giving us the rare opportunity to celebrate bears for doing what bears do best: eating an alarming amount of food and preparing for winter.

Not a fan of fall? That’s okay. Just three months until winter.

NPS Photos

Featured photo: Disapproved National Park Service agreements interactive map, Center for Western Priorities

The post New map tracks $25.9 million in NPS projects blocked by Trump administration appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

NC Governor Stein must stop the backroom scheming and lead a moratorium on data centers

NC WARN is calling a flagrant foul against corporate polluters – and state officials – for their use of persistent secrecy and deception in the targeting of communities across North Carolina for noxious data centers and fracked-gas pipelines.

Across the state, data center developers and Duke Energy continue using various tools of secrecy and influence to gain support from local leaders for unwanted projects before the public learns of the plans. Even after basic disclosure, the full extent of negative community impacts remains hidden by those operating in the shadows. 

In a letter sent today, NC WARN repeats our June 25 call for Governor Josh Stein to stop Duke Energy from recruiting data centers and to lead a moratorium on new ones. It’s clear that his silence indicates the odious, backroom deal-making continues – and almost surely includes state officials and tax money. 

NEW POWER PLANTS TOO

We also told Stein today that many communities targeted for data centers will also be saddled with new power plants built next to the energy-hogging data centers, thus forcing them to bear the significant health burdens of fossil fuel power generation.

Stein must immediately stop Duke Energy from continuing to recruit data centers, which the climate-wrecking corporation uses to justify the largest planned fossil fuel expansion in the US, causing power bills and climate pollution to soar for years. The Governor must also demand a statewide moratorium on new data centers – as called for by a state regulator’s expert in June.

Data center developments have faced well-deserved backlash from communities across the state and nation due to their massive power and water usage, air, water and noise pollution, economic burdens on the public and low job production, among the many factors. Nationally, concerns mount about AI’s role enhancing government-corporate surveillance and war-making.

One of the emerging deceptions is that data centers would pay for new power generation built by Duke Energy. Indications are that Duke leaders are scheming to quietly rebate any upfront costs paid by data center owners, thus forcing even more rate hikes onto other monopoly-captive customers.  

North Carolinians are being cheated, and our Governor must demand that it stop.  

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Now in its 38th year, NC WARN is building people power in the climate and energy justice movement to persuade or require Charlotte-based Duke Energy – one of the world’s largest climate polluters – to make a quick transition to renewable, affordable power generation and energy efficiency in order to avert climate tipping points and ongoing rate hikes.

The post Flagrant Foul Called Against Polluters and State Officials Pushing Secretive Data Centers, Pipelines – and Power Plants — NC WARN News Release appeared first on NC WARN.

This summer, America’s national debt crossed the $40 trillion mark—a grim milestone that put an exclamation point on the abject failure of DOGE, Elon Musk’s effort to reshape the federal government. This week, Tyler Hassen, the former oil executive who ran DOGE’s operation inside the Interior department, published a memoir of revisionist history titled Inside DOGE in which he tries to rehabilitate his and Musk’s image. But DOGE’s record is permanently written in scars across American landscapes and etched on the headstones of hundreds of thousands of children.

Hassen, who now runs a cleaning supply company that has pivoted to building AI data center infrastructure, concedes in the Wall Street Journal that DOGE never dented the national debt. “Did we achieve it? Of course not,” he writes, before dismissing critics as quibbling over the definition of savings and calling for a permanent DOGE housed in Congress. He cites a $215 billion savings tracker; POLITICO examined $32.7 billion of DOGE’s claimed contract savings and could verify only $1.4 billion.

The memoir does not mention that the National Park Service has lost roughly 4,000 permanent employees since DOGE’s arrival, about 24 percent of its permanent workforce; or that the U.S. Geological Survey fell from 8,400 employees to 6,800. Hassen defends the layoffs on the grounds that firing people is simply how capitalism operates. “It isn’t personal. It isn’t cruel,” he writes. Records obtained by E&E News show Interior spent $156.5 million on administrative leave between Trump’s second inauguration and the end of 2025, paying employees to stay home for months. That figure covers only the Office of the Secretary and excludes every Interior bureau.

Hassen at the White House, New York Post on X.com

Hassen closes his WSJ op-ed by invoking his five-year-old daughter and the debt she stands to inherit. He should sit her down and explain the rest of it: how his buyouts left taxpayers paying employees to sit at home and do nothing instead of protecting our public lands; that the federal government spent $9.5 billion on paid administrative leave in a single year, six times what it spent in 2023; that the debt passed $40 trillion on August 18, which made the number printed on his own book jacket obsolete five weeks before it shipped; and that he admits in print that none of it worked, and then asks for a chance to do it again.

Hassen should also explain the part that never shows up on a savings tracker. Independent modeling found DOGE’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development led to at least 750,000 deaths in the first year alone, most of them children. Yet Hassen complained to the Washington Post that the media treated “every reduction as a moral offense,” as if hundreds of thousands of dead children are an acceptable price to pay for imaginary savings.

Across America’s public lands, thousands of park rangers are gone. Hydrologists who measure what’s left in the Colorado River are gone. Scientists who protect imperiled species are gone. Tyler Hassen got paid for eleven months, then got a book deal, then got a job building data centers. Everyone else got the bill. He calls this moral and patriotic. Millions of Americans would choose a different word.

For more information, visit westernpriorities.org. Sign up for Look West to get daily public lands and energy news sent to your inbox, or subscribe to our podcast, The Landscape.

The post DOGE memoir skips the part where children died and taxpayers got ripped off appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

ANNAPOLIS, MD — Governor Wes Moore took positive steps to protect Marylanders from the harms of data centers with his executive order (EO) released today. In a press conference announcing the EO, the Governor spelled out five principles guiding the state’s criteria for considering data center projects, barred Maryland employees from entering into nondisclosure agreements with data center developers, and called on the General Assembly to repeal the sales and use tax exemption for data centers. However, the EO fails to establish a statewide moratorium on data center development, something county and municipal leaders have been seeking for months. It also contains no explicit clean energy requirements for data centers even as the global climate unravels. 

With 80 percent of Marylanders – including residents across red and blue regions – now living under some kind of temporary local ban or moratorium on data centers, leaders and activists across the state have been hoping Moore or the General Assembly would establish rigorous state-level guidance and leadership on this critical issue. At the top of that wish list is a multi-year state-level pause on new data center permits to allow true reform policies to be developed and take hold. Moore even told Punchbowl News last week that he would sign a moratorium bill from the General Assembly if it reached his desk in 2027.

Governor Moore’s executive order falls silent on this issue. Instead, his EO establishes the Maryland Data Center Accountability Task Force that must consider whether a data center project meets five principles: ratepayer and grid protections; economic benefits for Marylanders, including local hiring and union jobs; the preservation of community input, including no state preemption of local decisions; language around environmental protections, but no requirements for clean energy; and transparency and accountability, including the establishment of a public dashboard to track proposed projects and the commitments made by data center companies. Several of the outlined principles begin to address on-site pollution, rising energy bills associated with data center infrastructure and demand, and community impacts, but the principles are vague and leave the agencies with little direction and significant discretion. 

Also, with climate change impacts escalating across Maryland and the world, Governor Moore in his executive order, fails to require all new energy required from future data centers come from 100 percent clean power, a top priority of virtually every environmental group in the state. The EO directs the Task Force to look at the State’s climate commitments, but they are just one factor to be considered; the EO does not mandate adherence to the state’s climate goals or require data centers to run on clean energy. 

Brittany Baker, Maryland Director of Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), issued the following statement:

“Governor Moore’s executive order takes several meaningful steps forward and the legislature will have to finish the task. Maryland communities confronting data center development speak in the language of bans and moratoriums. A statewide multi-year pause on data center development is the most logical next step.

“Given the deepening climate crisis, Gov. Moore and the General Assembly must explicitly require all new data centers run on 100% clean energy. Period. Full stop.

“A multi-year statewide pause on new data center approvals is needed until strong, enforceable protections for ratepayers, water, air, land, and the climate are fully in place. With scientists warning that the window to prevent the worst impacts of climate change is rapidly narrowing, Maryland should not lock itself into a new wave of massive energy demand and fossil-fuel infrastructure before those safeguards exist.”

CCAN is supportive of policy proposals to ensure that data centers pay for infrastructure they incentivize the incumbent utility to build, procure their own clean energy resources, ban nondisclosure agreements, eliminate by-right development, and close regulatory loopholes that allow diesel generation to escape compliance with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. 

CCAN is now calling on Marylanders to sign the petition for a statewide moratorium on new data center development. In addition, the group will be hosting “People Over Data Centers”- Maryland Action Summit on November 7 in Baltimore alongside Nature Forward. 

#   #   #

Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) is the first grassroots organization dedicated exclusively to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in the Chesapeake Bay region. Founded in 2002, CCAN has been at the center of the fight for clean energy and wise climate policy in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC. 

The post Gov. Moore’s Data Center Executive Order Takes Positive Steps But Fails to Embrace Moratorium and Clean Energy Mandate, Leaves Communities Vulnerable appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

Council officers have allowed the access track to remain to the former Broadford Bridge oil exploration site in West Sussex.

Broadford Bridge access track

The site, near Billingshurst, has been suspended for about eight years. The operator, UK Energy Group plc (formerly UK Oil & Gas plc), is subject to official enforcement action to return the well pad to farmland.

But the track, originally constructed in about 2015, can remain, following a decision this week.

The planning permission was granted to Sheila Francis by county council officers on 21 September 2026 under delegated powers. It did not go to a planning committee meeting of councillors. Link to planning application

The approval allows retention of the 4.5m wide, 400m long track. It also permits the installation of two new 5-bar steel agricultural gates with Adversane Lane.

It requires the applicant to submit a landscaping plan within six months. This is expected to include belts of native shrub planning alongside parts of the track.

According to a report on the application, there were no objections from local councils. Three objections from members of the public focused on:

• Failure to adhere to previous commitments/planning requirements to restore the land following completion of temporary hydrocarbon exploration activities.
• No agricultural need demonstrated
• Impacts on historic landscape character
• Loss of agricultural land
• Loss of habitat and potential impacts on biodiversity

The report by planning officer, James Neave, said:

“it is considered that the development would support the needs of agriculture and would likely result in modest operational benefits to agricultural practices”.

The report also said:

“the proposed development would suitably integrate with its countryside setting and not give rise to any unacceptable landscape character or visual impacts.

“It is further considered that agricultural use of the track would be consistent with established farming activities and would not lead to any significant increase in the overall level of activity in the countryside.”

Planning breach

The Broadford Bridge exploration site, at Woodbarn Farm, has had no planning permission since March 2024 when West Sussex County Council refused an application for a fifth extension of consent. Before that, the site had been mothballed since 2018.

An operation to plug and abandon two Broadford Bridge wells ended in February 2026.

But the well pad, fencing, gates and soil bunds remain, despite a planning condition requiring the operator to return the site to farmland. West Sussex County Council took enforcement action in January 2025 and February 2026.

The officer’s report said:

“the main well pad and associated bund and fencing are in the process of being removed/the land resorted [restored] to agriculture.”

It added:

“The site is subject to live enforcement action (Breach of Condition Notices), that require the restoration of the site by the end of 2026.”

Oil and gas operators reported more than 2,400 spills across Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico in 2025, releasing a combined 5.8 million gallons of liquid, according to the annual Western Oil and Gas Spills Report from the Center for Western Priorities.

New Mexico operators reported 1,277 liquid spills, up 13 percent from 1,133 the year before, totaling 3.56 million gallons. A single OXY USA water storage tank failure accounted for nearly half of that volume on its own. Gas releases from venting and flaring fell eight percent, but operators still wasted 9.8 billion cubic feet of gas, in a state that produced 16 percent of the nation’s crude oil in 2025. Colorado spills fell 11 percent to 338, though volume nearly doubled to 794,000 gallons. Wyoming was the only state where both spill count and volume declined, dropping to 786 spills and 1.43 million gallons.

This year, CWP also analyzed Colorado’s historical spill filings and found 6,084 records between 2016 and 2025, with annual filings jumping more than fifteen-fold since 2020, from 125 that year to 1,948 last year. These are spills that were missed by operators for years before a well was plugged. Most of these spills surfaced only when companies plugged wells or tore down old equipment. This reveals that most spills go unreported despite the state’s strong reporting requirements, and implies the actual scale of spills and leaks is much bigger than this report captures, not just for Colorado, but in all three states.

“With the Trump administration pushing even more oil and gas drilling on public lands, this problem is set to increase rather than improve,” said Kate Groetzinger, CWP communications director. “We could be building out clean energy. Instead, we’re doubling down on dirty oil and gas production.”

Why submitting a public comment still matters—and how to write a good one

On a new episode of The Landscape, Kate and Aaron talk to Nick Holshouser, a data analyst with Wandering Nature, LLC, who is analyzing the public comments coming in on the Trump administration’s proposal to repeal the 2001 roadless rule in real-time at roadless.org, and Blaine Miller-McFeeley, a senior legislative representative at Earthjustice, about public comment periods under the Trump administration. We cover why you should still submit public comments (even though the Trump administration probably isn’t interested in your opinion) and how to write a comment that requires an agency response and helps build the legal record against bad agency actions.

Quick hits Trump administration says developers, loggers can kill endangered species

Stateline

Another flash flood hit the Grand Canyon, setting back recovery from a deadly flood weeks ago

Outside

Colorado agencies call for removal of Roan Plateau parcels from federal oil and gas lease sale

Summit Daily

St. Mary’s Glacier, a Colorado landmark, has melted amid a record-hot summer

Aspen Times | Colorado Sun

Leaked documents reveal Trump’s plan to take control of your national parks

Wes Siler’s Newsletter

National park rangers have a mental health problem. Could it get worse?

Scienceline

The roadless rule is facing repeal, experts want to be clear about wildfires and roads

WXPR

Opinion: Montana mines and how we move forward

Flathead Beacon

Quote of the day

Unless you’re wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘I’m here to draw the blood of endangered species,’ you’re basically off the hook.”

—Brett Hartl, Center for Biological Diversity government affairs director, Stateline

Picture This
@usinteriorSome places remind you just how vast and extraordinary this country really is.

At Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in Arizona, layers of sandstone twist, fold and sweep across the landscape at White Pocket, creating a scene that hardly looks real.

Managed by @mypubliclands, this remarkable landscape is part of the millions of acres of public lands that belong to all Americans.

You may never stand in this exact spot, but images like this give all of us a chance to appreciate the incredible beauty of our country.

Photo by BLM

 

Featured photo: BLM truck and oil and gas infrastructure. Source: BLM Colorado

The post At least 2,400 oil and gas spills occurred across Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico in 2025 appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

DENVER—The Center for Western Priorities today published an interactive map of the 133 National Park Service partner agreements that were disapproved by the Department of the Interior on August 7, blocking $25.9 million in funding. Parks and their partners had already secured the funding for these programs from congressional appropriations, existing federal programs, and internal funding. The Interior department review was the final step before the agreements could be signed and the money released.

The disapproved agreements were first reported on by the Washington Post earlier this month. Interior told the Washington Post it had disapproved agreements with groups “actively working against the best interests of the American people and the priorities of this administration.” NPS staff reported they received no explanation beyond a note in the records reading “Disapproved by DOI.”

Explore the map

Every agreement appears on the map with the park or office that requested it, the partner organization that would have carried out the work, the dollar figure attached to it, and the National Park Service’s own written statement of what disapproval means for that site. The complete dataset is available to download as a CSV.

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Center for Western Priorities Communications Director Kate Groetzinger:

“Revoking funding for organizations that support America’s national parks shows how much disdain Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has for America’s public lands. The Interior department says these groups were ‘working against the best interests of the American people.’ That makes no sense. Anyone working to make our parks better, safer, and cleaner is clearly working in America’s best interest.

“Every one of these projects had its funding secured, and parks were counting on the work getting done. Blocking these agreements did not save a dollar. It pushed the work down the road and likely made it even more costly in the future. At Joshua Tree, for example, national park staff wrote that without approval for their projects, wildfires there will be larger and cost more to fight. Let’s hear the Interior department explain why that’s a good thing for the American people.”

Methodology:

The map draws on data from the National Park Service’s Financial Assistance Submission Tracker, with status as of September 9, 2026 and subsequently provided to the Center for Western Priorities. The August 7 batch held 140 requests; seven have since moved to another status and are excluded. Project descriptions and impact statements appear as written in the records. Full methodology, a data dictionary, and the source code are published at github.com/Center-for-Western-Priorities/2026-NPS-Agreement-Disapprovals.

Learn more:

• Trump administration blocks $25 million in funding for national parks — Washington Post

• Gold statues and staff cuts: How Trump has disrupted America’s parks — New York Times

The post STATEMENT: New map tracks $25.9 million in NPS projects blocked by Trump administration appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Nostalgia Is Not an Energy or Economic Strategy

The post Nostalgia Is Not a Good Energy or Economic Strategy appeared first on Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

Kate and Aaron talk to Nick Holshouser, a data analyst with Wandering Nature, LLC, who is analyzing the public comments coming in on the Trump administration’s proposal to repeal the 2001 roadless rule in real-time at roadless.org, and Blaine Miller-McFeeley, a senior legislative representative at Earthjustice, about public comment periods under the Trump administration. We cover why you should still submit public comments (even though the Trump administration probably isn’t interested in your opinion) and how to write a comment that requires an agency response and helps build the legal record against bad agency actions.

News

• Trump is considering more data centers on public lands than previously known – The Washington Sun
• Forest Service adds comment period for PitCo’s Maroon Bells operations takeover – Aspen Journalism

Resources

• Roadless Rule repeal live comment analysis
• Submit a comment on the proposed Roadless Rule repeal
• Watch this episode on YouTube (coming soon)

Produced by Aaron Weiss, Lauren Bogard, Kate Groetzinger, and Lilly Bock-Brownstein
Feedback: podcast@westernpriorities.org
Music: Purple Planet
Featured image: Stand of Ponderosa Pines in Grassy Valley by Deer Creek on the Malheur National Forest in North Eastern Oregon; Source: USFS/Flickr

The post Why submitting a public comment still matters—and how to write a good one appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

For Immediate Release:

September 21, 2026

Contact:
Ashley Castaneda, ashley@restorethedelta.org

SACRAMENTO — Today, the Delta Tribal Environmental Coalition (DTEC)—consisting of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Little Manila Rising, and Restore the Delta— submitted comments on the updated San Francisco Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan (“Bay-Delta Plan”), a critical policy guiding water quality, river flows, and ecosystem protections for the state’s largest and most fragile estuary. 

The updated plan drew immediate opposition from the coalition for failing to make meaningful changes to address longstanding Tribal, environmental justice, and ecological concerns. 

“Protection of Tribal sovereignty and beneficial water uses cannot be achieved through approval of voluntary agreements that excluded tribes. This is the Board’s final opportunity to reverse course and do the right thing,” said Vice Chair Malissa Tayaba, Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians.

Among DTEC’s central concerns is the plan’s reliance on Voluntary Agreements (VAs), privately negotiated deals allowing powerful water districts to offer limited flow commitments and funding in exchange for exemptions from stronger, enforceable regulatory requirements. 

Tribal, environmental justice, and conservation groups have raised concerns that the VA approach is not scientifically sound and does not provide enforceable protections needed to safeguard Delta ecosystems and communities. The framework has also faced growing uncertainty, with the Bureau of Reclamation and Westlands Water District threatening to withdraw.

“The update to the Bay-Delta Plan comes at one of the most crucial moments for our fragile Bay-Delta estuary, and yet the Plan once again fails to meet the moment. This latest iteration again seeks to move forward the inequitable and environmentally damaging voluntary agreements, which will only further ecosystem decline, harming communities, tribes, Delta economies, and fishing communities,” said Morgen Snyder, Director of Policy and Programs at Restore the Delta. “Swapping voluntary agreements for a regulatory backstop with minimum flow requirements misses the point – flows are habitat, and without adequate flows, fish populations will continue to decline, harmful algal blooms will proliferate, and our communities will suffer.” 

DTEC maintains that the State Water Board has failed to remedy deficiencies previously identified in the draft Plan. Among DTEC’s chief concerns are:

• Procedural violations, including advancing the updated plan while a federal Title VI investigation into discriminatory water management practices remains open.
• Discriminatory effects, including the omission of enforceable harmful algal bloom standards and meaningful instream flow requirements that could result in unlawful discriminatory effects on Tribes and communities of color.
• Failure to analyze the project as a whole and to base the environmental analysis on a stable project description, including how voluntary agreements would operate and the potential influence of major infrastructure operations that have not been accounted for.
• Failure to conduct government to government Tribal consultation required under AB 52.
• Public trust violations and unreasonable timelines that undermine meaningful public participation and effective protection of Delta resources. 

“After taking thirty years to update the Bay Delta Plan, the State Water Resources Control Board’s latest update will only further devastate fish populations, increase environmental damage, and cater to elite special interests through the Healthy Rivers and Landscapes (VAs) proposals. This is not a plan that protects beneficial uses for all Californians, it is a plan that kowtows to political pressure and elite special interests,” said Gary Mulcahy, Government Liaison with the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. 

“The final update to the Bay-Delta Plan is another opportunity for the water board to honor public trust and stand for the protection of our natural resources against the interest of private governing bodies,” said Gloria Alonso Cruz, Environmental Justice Advocacy Coordinator with Little Manila Rising. “The VAs perpetuate the systemic inequities manifested across our landscapes, inequities that those with the least access to clean and safe waterways are too familiar with. The public must urge the board to renounce the VAs and instead pursue science-based solutions that demonstrate a real commitment to environmental justice over private interests.”

The State Water Board is scheduled to consider adoption of the updated Bay-Delta Plan at a hearing on October 28-29. Learn how you can make a public comment.

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Legacy spills and leaks analyzed in this year’s report raise new questions about decades of undetected pollution

The following release was updated on 9/22/26 to correct these two errors:

In the Wyoming section, the release stated that Merit Energy reported seven spills in 2025. Merit Energy actually reported 30 spills and ranked seventh among Wyoming operators in total spill count in 2025. Merit spilled the most volume of any operator. 

In the Colorado section, the release referenced “a single spill of 445,284 gallons in the Piceance Basin by QB Energy Operating.” The largest single spill was approximately 352,800 gallons of produced water, spilled by QB Energy in the Piceance Basin on December 2, 2025. QB Energy’s total reported spill volume across 46 incidents in 2025 was 445,284 gallons.

DENVER—Each year, the Center for Western Priorities analyzes oil and gas spills reported by companies to state regulators in Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico—the top oil and gas producers in the Intermountain West. This year, companies in these states reported over 2,400 liquid spills in 2025, releasing at least 5.8 million gallons of oil, produced water, and other toxic, drilling-related fluids.

This year’s report also reveals a problem regulators are only beginning to understand. In Colorado, the number of spills discovered at well sites during decommissioning has grown sharply over the past several years, from 125 in 2020 to 1,948 in 2025, a more than fifteen-fold increase. Since 2016, operators and regulators have identified 6,084 of these legacy contamination sites. These are spills that were missed by operators for years before a well was plugged. Weld County alone accounts for 87 percent of the total, and three companies, Noble Energy, Kerr-McGee, and PDC Energy, are tied to more than three-quarters of these historical spills. Fewer than one percent of these spills and leaks were caught by routine state inspections; the rest surfaced only when a well was being decommissioned.

The magnitude of these historical spills dwarfs what shows up in the state’s annual spill reporting: the 6,084 legacy spills uncovered since 2016 already outnumber the 3,642 spills Colorado has logged through its standard annual reporting system since 2017, revealing that most spills go unreported despite the state’s strong reporting requirements. This implies the actual scale of spills and leaks is much bigger than this report captures, not just for Colorado, but in all three states.

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from report co-author and Communications Director Kate Groetzinger:

“Across all three states, a pattern is consistent: spill counts can rise or fall year to year, but the volume of oil, produced water, and methane released into the region’s air, soil, and waterways remains substantial, and thanks to the Colorado historical spill data, decades of contamination is only now coming to light.

“While increased regulations seem to have had some effect in curbing methane waste in New Mexico, oil and gas production still generates significant air pollution that Westerners shouldn’t be forced to live with. With the Trump administration pushing even more oil and gas drilling on public lands, this problem is set to increase rather than improve. We could be building out clean energy. Instead, we’re doubling down on dirty oil and gas production.”

In New Mexico, oil and gas companies reported 1,277 liquid spills in 2025, up 13 percent from 1,133 the year before, totaling 3.56 million gallons, a 75 percent jump from 2024. Nearly half of that volume, 1.66 million gallons, came from a single incident: an OXY USA produced-water storage tank failure. Removing that spill brings New Mexico’s 2025 volume below 2024’s. Oil and gas companies in New Mexico also reported 37,207 gas releases, wasting 9.8 billion cubic feet of methane, enough to heat roughly 127,000 average American homes for an entire year.

In Wyoming, companies reported 786 spills in 2025, down from 825 in 2024. The total volume spilled in Wyoming fell 21 percent, from 1.81 million to 1.43 million gallons, driven mostly by a drop in produced water releases. Converse and Campbell counties, both in the Powder River Basin, accounted for 39 percent of the state’s incidents. Crowheart Energy reported the most spills of any operator, at 102, while Merit Energy spilled the most volume, at 303,565 gallons.

In Colorado, oil and gas companies reported 338 spills in 2025, the fewest since the state began tracking in 2017 and down 11 percent from 378 in 2024. But the volume spilled nearly doubled from 2024 to 2025, from 436,000 to 794,000 gallons, largely because of a single spill of 352,800 gallons in the Piceance Basin by QB Energy Operating—almost half of the total volume spilled in Colorado in 2025. As in past years, roughly half of all spills statewide occurred in Weld County.

The full report, including state-by-state data on operators, counties, and fluid types, is available at the following links:

• Overview 2025

• Colorado 2025

• Colorado Historical Spills

• New Mexico 2025

• Wyoming 2025

The post ANALYSIS: Annual report finds at least 2,400 oil and gas spills occurred across Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico in 2025 appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Have you heard about the dangerous Summit Carbon pipeline proposed across the state of Nebraska?

WHAT: Landowners Meeting: Know Your Rights!

WHEN: Wednesday, Oct. 7, 6:00 p.m. CT

Join by computer: Click at 6pm: https://bit.ly/summitnebraska

Join by phone: 312-626-6799
MEETING ID: 895 7619 3073

Summit Carbon Solutions would have to use eminent domain to route a dangerous pipeline carrying carbon dioxide (CO2), a known asphyxiant, across the entire state of Nebraska.

An attorney and organizers with the Nebraska Easement Action Team landowners’ legal co-op will provide an overview of the project, explain landowners’ rights, and answer questions.

The Nebraska Easement Action Team (NEAT), a project of Bold, works to educate landowners and to support organizing those who are opposed to eminent domain for private gain, providing property rights education, and strategic landowner legal challenges to proposed pipeline projects, including constitutional challenges and condemnation litigation.

The U.S. Forest Service announced on Friday that it will conduct a 15-day comment period before signing off on a special use permit for Pitkin County, Colorado to manage operations at the Maroon Bells Scenic Area. The opportunity for public comment was added following pressure from public lands advocates, including the Center for Western Priorities. The comment period will begin after county commissioners vote on the special use permit this Wednesday.

The agency still intends to approve the permit using a categorical exclusion, which lets it skip the environmental review and public comment process required under the National Environmental Policy Act. The Forest Service has not yet released a map or an acreage number for what the permit would cover. “The public can’t meaningfully participate if USFS is withholding key information about the scope of what it’s proposing,” said CWP executive director Aaron Weiss.

Pitkin County has partnered with the Forest Service on operations at Maroon Bells for decades, but the partnership is not a solution for a lack of federal funding. “We feel like this is the best path forward, and if we can all work together and get federal lands funded at a higher level, that one day, the county could give this back,” said Gary Tennenbaum, director of Pitkin County Open Space and Trails. “Ultimately, we would like the federal government to fund their public lands.”

Scott Fitzwilliams, retired White River National Forest supervisor, worries the arrangement could set a dangerous standard. “Partnerships should add to the agency’s capability,” he said. “They should not become a mechanism to normalize the decline and dismantling of our federal agencies.”

How Trump has disrupted America’s national parks

The Trump administration diverted at least $67 million in national park entrance fees this spring to projects in Washington, D.C., including a no-bid contract to cover four statues near the National Mall in gold leaf, according to documents reviewed by the New York Times. Workforce cuts have left at least 20 percent of parks significantly understaffed. Roughly 1,500 repairs and upgrades at more than 200 National Park Service sites were labeled “low priority,” and most will go unfunded when the fiscal year closes September 30.

Quick hits Trump signs orders loosening hunting restrictions

The Hill | Deseret News | Newsweek | Outdoor Life | USA Today | Mongabay

Border wall construction begins in Big Bend region

Associated Press

Trump asked Americans to help him whitewash national parks. They revolted instead

The Guardian

2025 saw a $1.3 billion dip for public land agency contractors

Wyoming Public Radio

Report: The current state of public lands

Mountain Pact

Prospectors filed 16 mining claims the same day the lands Trump cut from Bears Ears were opened to mining claims

Salt Lake Tribune

Federal employee unions sue to block reorganization of Forest Service

Arizona Daily Sun

Trump says planned 250-foot arch will be ‘military complex’ for drones, snipers

Washington Post | USA Today | The Hill | Time | ABC | Associated Press

Quote of the day

Our parks tell the history of this country. You may not like the history, but it is the history, and so you should tell the story that did take place, not come in and edit.”

—Fran Mainella, former National Park Service director under George W. Bush, New York Times

Picture This @katmainppThe wait is finally over!

Fat Bear Week starts Tuesday, September 22, 2026. This year, 16 bears go head to head in a bracket-style competition to see which bear of Brooks River is the fattest. A fat bear is a successful bear, and Fat Bear Week celebrates the success of these wild, brown bears.

America’s natural and cultural landscapes that support these fat bears, embody an evolving national story. Katmai National Park and Preserve offers a powerful lens through which visitors can experience an important part of this story. This year, when America celebrates its 250th year of independence, the park honors the places that sustain its communities, whether human or wildlife.

Learn more at the fat bear link in our bio!

Graphics designed by hand by Sara Wolman, courtesy of explore.org #fatbearweek

Featured photo: Maroon Bells Scenic Area. Source: David Blackley, CC BY-ND 2.0

The post Forest Service adds comment period for Maroon Bells management decision appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

The September 10 special meeting of the Village of Questa City Council on Kit Carson Electric Cooperative’s (KCEC) proposed hydrogen facility delivered a shock to the hundreds of people who attended. Longtime Questa Attorney Marcus Rael, Jr., who lives in Albuquerque but was born and bred in Questa, provided the documentation that essentially says the Village of Questa has no authority to stop the facility because the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which issued the Environmental Analysis (EA) Record of Decision (ROD) allowing the development, has supremacy over the project.

Rael passed out printed documentation of rules and regs and went painstakingly through the process of explaining it. Here’s a summary that leads up to the supremacy decision:

• In February of 2026 the Village took action to zone the tailings dam, site of the project, as heavy industrial. The green hydrogen plant and the solar array qualify as heavy industrial and are allowed in that type of zone. The New Mexico Construction Industries Division (CID) confirmed in a letter that the village of Questa holds the statutory authority to approve planning and zoning applicants for the village of Questa.

• Taos County initially issued a zoning clearance building permit for a fence but that was later withdrawn.

• CID identified Kit Carson as a rural electric cooperative that . It cites New Mexico State Statute 60-13-3D3 for the exclusion applicable to construction, reconstruction, operation or maintenance of a cooperative’s plant or facilities.

• Projects by rural electric cooperatives are governed by the National Electric Code and the New Mexico Electric Code, which was adopted by the New Mexico Administrative Code, that states no permitting is necessary for electrical utility projects.

• The Public Regulatory Commission states that green hydrogen projects specifically do not require construction permitting.

• The municipality, county, and state have no authority over the project, only the U.S government does.

• The two acequias in Questa, Cabresto Lake and Irrigation Association and Llano Community Ditch, filed a complaint against the USDA that is still pending in court.

Rael stood for questions and they readily came. Several people asked Rael about his dealings with KCEC and if he knew in advance about this situation. He responded that he’d had preliminary meetings with KCEC attorneys and was allowed to ask some questions. He also requested a copy of the USDA application for the hydrogen project and was denied access, so he filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)—twice. The Village of Questa and several other lawyers have also submitted FOIAs. No one has had a response.

Mayor Ortega, who has been accused of conflict of interest as a board member of KCEC (and who wielded an active gavel during the meeting), spoke up about Chevron, owner of the former molybdenum mine and the well for the hydrogen project. He stated that one way to stop the project is to ask Chevron to not provide the water to KCEC. He claimed that Chevron had turned its face from the community. Later in the meeting Attorney Rael stated that the mayor did not vote on the zoning ordinance when it came before the village council. Ortega also has stated that he would abstain from any votes having to do with KCEC. Rael then explained that Chevron is no longer managed by Chevron Mining Corporation or managed by Chevron Environmental Resources. The mine site and the tailing site are being managed by Chevron Asset Control. And what that company does is sells things off that they no longer need. “And they are very difficult to deal with.”

Many people raised questions about water, which in this time of extreme drought and climate crisis is critical. The fact that when KCEC first proposed the hydrogen plant, which breaks down water into energy, the water was supposed to be Chevron’s reclaimed water at the water treatment plant but was then changed to one of its tailing facility wells within the Village of Questa. Danny Garcia, Chairman of the Cabresto Lake and Irrigation Association, described the dire situation of surface water rights that have dropped precipitously over the past few irrigation seasons. By 1976 the Llano Community Ditch was receiving only 60 percent of its traditional amount of water. By 2020, that amount had diminished to 30 percent. For the last few years, Llano has received only two or three weeks-worth of water while Cabresto’s irrigation season is over (the two acequias are the plaintiffs in the complaint against the USDA). He also presented a history of Questa’s water rights and well development. Over the years a number of wells were drilled for domestic purposes in Questa but currently only two wells are in use. The well that will provide water for the hydrogen project is 500 feet deep and will supposedly supply clean water for the project (KCEC says it will divert 40-to-50 afy to the hydrogen plant but will apply to transfer the well’s 250 afy capacity). The Office of the State Engineer will have to provide an assessment as well as oversee Chevron’s application to transfer use of the well.

Attorney Rael pointed out that the Village originally had a well that was 175 feet deep. For a municipality, that’s just not sufficient, so “in 2016, we got the village to deepen the well.” Someone interrupted to ask, “Why are you saying we?” Rael responded, “Because I represented the village at the time. I’m from here, but if you don’t like my use of the word we, I’ll say they. The village deepened their well. As the village attorney, I worked on that.”

The other water issue raised is how the hydrogen plant uses the water. It takes H2O, hydrogen and oxygen, splits the atoms, saves the hydrogen, and releases the oxygen into the air.  Ninety percent of the water is going to be turned into hydrogen and get burned and then released as carbon into the air. It will not be recycled. When asked if anything could be done to protect the water, Rael said that the village of Questa or other individuals could go to the Office of the State Engineer when Chevron actually applies for the change of use for the tailings well and protest the transfer.

Longtime activist Juan Montes urged that the water transfer should be protested and also brought up another issue that La Jicarita covered in a previous article: “that this town has been run by a shadow government, by the Questa Economic Development Fund.” In the La Jicarita article, Honorio Justin Rael, a UNM Law School student, native of Questa, and co-author of the complaint filed against the USDA, had this to say at an August Village of Questa meeting:

“The people who make decisions for this town do not sit on that board [Village City Council]. It is the Questa Economic Development Fund. The Questa Economic Development Fund is an independent Chevron-funded nonprofit partner, but they are not an elected governing body.

Yet their agendas are probably four times the size of any agenda I’ve seen from this village. And you know how we’ve never gotten any updates on what’s going on with this project? Well, they get monthly detailed updates from the mayor. Last year, they made teams to complete the zoning ordinance that allowed this project to move forward without a project-specific vote.”

After some interruptions and an argument over whether the tailings at the proposed hydrogen site and solar array are completely covered, several people were ejected from the meeting by the state police (why are police always present at these kinds of community meetings?). Several other issues were raised about who will be responsible for costs if the project fails and the possibility of rate increases. On a more positive note, Shirley Romero, longtime San Luis Valley activist who was part of a land grant coalition that won back access to the privatized San Luis Land Grant, urged everyone not to give up hope and to engage their congressional delegation in the fight. Guy DiCharry, the attorney who filed the complaint against the USDA, told the Taos News he had sent a letter to the Regulation and Licensing Department challenging its interpretation of state statute exempting KCEC from permitting requirements but had not yet heard back. 

Reabold Resources has hit back at doubts over plans to frack at West Newton in East Yorkshire made by the partner it is seeking to acquire.

Road closure plans as part of West Newton fracking operation. Photo: Used with the owner’s consent

Earlier this month, Union Jack, which has a 16.665% stake in West Newton, said it had concerns over the “technical viability of the project” to recomplete the West Newton-A2 well (WNA-2), due to be carried out by the end of 2026.

Union Jack, which rejected Reabold’s takeover bid, also said it was concerned about the ability of the site operator, Rathlin Energy, to deliver “overall sustained commercial production”.

This morning, Reabold accused Union Jack of “speculative” and “unsupported” comments over West Newton. Official statement

“Undeveloped discovery”

In a circular to shareholders on 11 September 2026, Union Jack said:

“West Newton remains an undeveloped gas and condensate discovery that has yet to establish sustained commercial production.”

Two wells drilled in the West Newton field had “failed to establish sustained flow”, consistent with wellbore formation damage, Union Jack said.

It added that an initial review had concluded:

“The outcome of the proposed stimulation is not known.”

Union Jack also raised concerns about possible legal action over the Environment Agency’s variation of the West Newton permit. It said:

“The outcome of those proceedings (if any) is outside the control of either company, and an adverse outcome, or interim relief granted before or during operations, would immediately halt the planned work and capital expended to date could be at risk.”

“Misleading, selective and highly speculative”

This morning, Reabold said it “strongly rejects the suggestion that West Newton lacks strategic merit”.

It accused the Union Jack board of “highly selective views” on West Newton. It also said the Union Jack circular contained “a number of misleading, selective and highly speculative statements regarding Reabold, the offer and the West Newton project”.

Reabold, which has a near 80% stake in Rathlin Energy, said:

“The New Board seeks to characterise West Newton as a risk that Union Jack Shareholders should avoid.

“Reabold considers this position inconsistent with Union Jack’s longstanding investment in West Newton and the repeated statements made by the former Union Jack board regarding the significance of the project.

“West Newton remains one of the largest onshore conventional gas and condensate discoveries in the United Kingdom. Significant technical work has been undertaken to understand historic well performance and to design the forthcoming WNA-2 recompletion programme.”

Reabold described as “largely speculative” the new board’s comments on reservoir performance, permitting matters and future development activity.

It added:

“Importantly, the New Board provides no independent technical report to support its assertions regarding the project’s prospects.”

Reabold described the rejection of its offer by the new Union Jack board as “self-serving” and said it was “not in the best interests of Union Jack as a whole or for Union Jack shareholders”.

It said Union Jack may require additional funding to meet future commitments, including those at West Newton.

• The Takeover Panel has extended the deadline for the Reabold offer for Union Jack until 1pm on 2 October 2026.

Road closure

The first stage in the West Newton project is construction of passing places along the lorry route on Pasture Lane. The road is due to be closed from Wednesday 23 September to Monday 5 October 2026.

Launch of $72.5 million Heat Pump Rebate Program provides opportunity to deliver immediate economic relief for Maryland households facing massive heating cost spikes

 

BALTIMORE, MD — As Maryland residents who rely on heating oil and propane are expected to see winter heating bills spike as much as 31%, the Maryland Clean Heat Coalition today submitted comments urging the Maryland Energy Administration (MEA) to use more than $72 million in recently approved funding as part of its Heat Pump Rebate Program to target low- and moderate-income households on delivered fuels and electric resistance. The General Assembly included this funding in its fiscal year 2027 budget.

Delivered fuels such as propane and heating oil, used by roughly 10% of Maryland households, are some of the most expensive ways to heat a home in Maryland today. Thanks to the ongoing war in Iran, federal price estimates reveal heating oil prices have increased 120% since January. Residents who rely on inefficient electric resistance heating are likewise exposed to mounting energy bills due to data center demand and requests by utilities to increase profit margins. Targeting low-income residents for heat pump upgrades, who disproportionately rely on these technologies for home heating, can deliver $350 million in energy cost savings per year by 2050, according to the Sierra Club Maryland Chapter and the Center for Progressive Reform. 

“Ahead of the heating season, thousands of low- and moderate-income households across Maryland are experiencing sticker shock as they purchase delivered fuels for the winter,” said Anne Havemann, Deputy Director at Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “These households are facing the worst of the energy affordability crisis, and Maryland must work quickly to help. That’s why we are urging policymakers to ensure that $72 million in funding passed by lawmakers this past legislative session is used to upgrade households on delivered fuels and electric resistance with efficient heat pumps.”

To maximize savings, Maryland must ensure quality installations and build the pool of experienced contractors across the state. In their recommendations, advocates stressed the importance of investing in workforce development programs and streamlined processes to ensure contractor participation in the program. That includes a statewide heat pump contractor network, similar to one in Maine, where verified contractors can be matched with Maryland residents and access training resources.

“Contractors will be on the front lines of implementing Maryland’s Heat Pump Rebate Program,” said Sean Mallonee, of SM Mechanical and President of Heating and Air Conditioning Contractors of Maryland.“To ensure they are supported, policymakers must partner with manufacturers and educational institutions to provide contractors with the required technical training. The state must also create streamlined processes that ease the barriers to entry and participation for contractors while also ensuring those contractors are legitimate to protect homeowners as well.  By creating a Heat Pump Rebate Program that supports licensed contractors, Maryland will not only accelerate the adoption of heat pumps but also create good-paying jobs in the process with consumer protection in place.”

The coalition urged MEA to structure the Heat Pump Rebate Program to align with the state’s forthcoming Clean Heat Rules, a set of complementary policies that would phase in zero-emission heating equipment in Maryland households to lower energy bills and invest in healthier air statewide. MEA should also coordinate with other state and utility programs, including EmPOWER Maryland, to braid resources and offer households incentives for wrap-around services that can deliver greater savings, including energy efficiency upgrades and weatherization.

“A whole-house approach to electrification has been proven to lower energy bills, improve indoor air quality, and enhance comfort,” said Ruth Ann Norton, president and CEO of the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative. “That is why policies such as the Heat Pump Rebate Program must be designed to work in tandem with Maryland’s upcoming Clean Heat Rules and energy efficiency program, EmPOWER. By doing so, Maryland can comprehensively address safety, structure, and energy-inefficiency issues in a home, delivering major economic benefits and quality of life improvements for residents.”

Failing to upgrade residents on the Eastern Shore and Western Maryland with zero-emission equipment risks locking in rising energy bills and long-term pollution impacts of fossil fuel heating. Gas utilities are working to expand their networks in these regions despite having some of the highest rates in the entire state—nearly $1 per therm higher than other Maryland utilities. Households will not only lose out on greater savings achieved by heat pumps, but be saddled with the mounting costs of maintaining Maryland’s aging gas system. If Maryland fails to quickly upgrade households on delivered fuels with heat pumps, they could be locked into the polluting gas system for at least another 15 years.

“Switching Maryland households on delivered fuels to methane gas isn’t a viable solution, especially as gas prices rise,” said Bryan Dunning, senior policy analyst at Center for Progressive Reform. “Letting utilities expand the polluting gas system to more households risks hooking residents on a stranded asset. Instead, the focus should be on switching to efficient electric systems that will bear long-term energy and health savings to ratepayers.”

Additional statements from organizations can be found below:

“Nearly 42% of Maryland households reported struggling to pay their utility bill last year, indicating the extent of the state’s energy affordability crisis,” said Rev. Catherine Manhardt, climate equity team leader at the Maryland Just Power Alliance. “As families struggle to get by, there are steps that policymakers can take to provide immediate relief. That includes transitioning low- and moderate-income homes with inefficient electric resistance systems or delivered fuels to efficient electric heat pumps, which can provide thousands of dollars in savings.”

“Households relying on delivered fuels and inefficient electric resistance to heat their homes are set to face skyrocketing energy costs this winter,” said Tony Sirna, deputy policy director at Evergreen Action. “It’s why advocates are urging policymakers to design and quickly distribute $72 in funding that targets these energy-burdened households with heat pump upgrades that are proven to lower energy bills.”

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The post Maryland Clean Heat Coalition Urges Policymakers to Prioritize Upgrading Homes on Delivered Fuels with Heat Pumps  appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

Platform represents major improvement upon status quo, but communities in crisis need immediate relief through pause on data center development

 

RICHMOND, VA — Governor Abigail Spanberger released today her “Data Center Accountability Framework,” which includes a combination of executive actions and policy endorsements to protect communities and the environment from data centers. Several of the endorsed policies take notable steps to address on-site pollution, rising energy bills associated with data center infrastructure and demand, and community impacts. However, the platform does not include a pause on data center development or a ban on on-site gas generation for primary power. Communities around the Commonwealth are calling for a moratorium on data center approvals until comprehensive policy guardrails are in place to protect communities and the environment, a platform called “Pause to Protect.”

Victoria Higgins, Virginia Director of Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), issued the following statement:

“We appreciate that the Governor’s platform takes several major steps forward, but also that communities facing data center development are in crisis right now. We need a pause on data center approvals until water-tight environmental and community protections are on the books and being enforced. Scientists are begging policymakers to take decisive action yesterday to stop runaway climate change, while the Trump Administration moves to allow limitless pollution. We must stop the madness and issue an immediate pause on approvals until these protections – and more – are fully implemented.”

CCAN is supportive of policy proposals to ensure that data centers pay for infrastructure they incentivize the incumbent utility to build, procure their own clean energy resources, ban Non-Disclosure Agreements, eliminate by-right development, and close regulatory loopholes that allow diesel generation to escape compliance with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. While the Governor’s platform suggests strong limits on behind-the-meter, or directly-connected, gas turbines as a means of primary power for data centers, CCAN advocates for an all-out ban on such on-site gas generation. 

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Chesapeake Climate Action Network is the first grassroots organization dedicated exclusively to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in the Chesapeake Bay region. Founded in 2002, CCAN has been at the center of the fight for clean energy and wise climate policy in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC.

The post Spanberger Data Center Platform Takes Steps Forward, But Communities Still Need “Pause to Protect” appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.