News Feeds

On his first day in office, Mayor Mamdani told New York City that his administration would “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism” and promised that City Hall would “use its power to improve New Yorkers’ lives.”

More than seven months later, Mamdani announced that would he start wearing a bike helmet on his frequent rides across the city, apparently in response to the pleas of his constituents. “You’re right, I’ve gotta do better,” he said in a video published on Aug. 18. “Safety first, New York. See you out there.”

The video garnered 26 million views on X. New Yorkers heaped praise on Hizzoner’s announcement, while reporters gushed over the mayor’s message. The New York Times lauded the mayor for “finally” donning the protective headgear, while the Department of Transportation advertised one of its routine free helmet giveaways.

The announcement combined everything that Mamdani loves about the city with everything that the city loves about Mamdani: cycling, safety, vertical video and a sense of protectiveness around their globally famous mayor.

Yet the same announcement further entrenched a persistent narrative that assigns responsibility for road safety to individual cyclists while downplaying the government’s role in designing safer streets.

That narrative is completely false. The chief culprits of traffic violence are car drivers who terrorize the city’s streets, maim and kill its residents and evade any punishment for doing so.

This became painfully clear when three drivers — none of whom Mamdani’s NYPD has arrested or even identified — slaughtered three cyclists in three separate crashes in less than a week. At least two of those cyclists were wearing a helmet. But helmets are no match for three-ton motor vehicles.

Mamdani’s focus on helmets distracts from that reality. It paints deadly crashes as the failure of vulnerable road users to protect themselves, rather than as the failure of government to stop completely avoidable carnage.

“We are as a nation eternally distracted by the idea that personal responsibility can save us so that we can excuse widespread preventable death,” said Jessie Singer, who wrote the book about car crashes and has critiqued helmet campaigns in the past.

“Helmets are great,” Singer added. “Helmets serve a practical function of protecting your head if you fall off your bike and hit the asphalt — [but] even the manufacturers of helmets will tell you that they’re not made [to protect cyclist from] cars.”

Some advocates praised Mamdani for putting safe and affordable transportation at the top of his agenda and normalizing cycling as a prominent public figure.

“I thought the mayor’s video was cute and I actually see it as his mainstreaming of bicycling,” said Ben Furnas, executive director of Transportation Alternatives.

And Singer concurred, adding, “As much as I see all of the problems with the helmet discourse, I appreciate that Mamdani is willing to say, ‘I’m listening to what you all are complaining about.’”

But the mayor’s video, with its focus on individualistic talking points, perturbed other street safety activists. “I’d rather he’d keep the focus on institutional solutions to this public health crisis,” said Doug Gordon, who co-hosts the War on Cars podcast and co-wrote a book about building a post-car society. “There’s almost never good timing for an elected official to post a helmet video in a city where you have an average of one or two cyclists or pedestrian fatalities every other day.”

Helmets aren’t entirely useless, and they reduce the risk of head injury by up to 88 percent. Furnas pointed out that the gear is especially useful for electric mobility devices that can achieve much faster speeds. “In those types of crashes a head injury is a real risk,” he said. “The bottom line is it’s never a bad idea to pop on a helmet when you’re riding a bike.”

Still, some cyclists question the efficacy of helmets and wonder if other factors — like people riding more safely or better infrastructure — more accurately explain their alleged correlation with lower injury rates.

“It’s a mistake to focus your narrative on ‘wear your helmet,'” said Kevin Montgomery, who penned a provocative essay that argued helmets are useless and still believes their benefits are questionable. “It’s a bad faith argument a lot of the time, spoken by people who don’t necessarily have any interest in cycling themselves.”

Changing the story

Helmets shift the narrative away from government’s role in protecting people on the road toward one of personal responsibility. Singer compared helmet campaigns to the signs that some cities hang near highways to instruct drivers to slow down — even though the highways encourage high speeds.

“They’re looking to comfort themselves,” Singer explained. “It’s a way of saying, ‘This couldn’t happen to me, I know better.'”

Academic research supports this line of thinking. Studies have found that more people don protective gear in countries, like the United States, where it is less safe to bike. The authors of a 2017 study argued that American cities routinely tie helmet campaigns to car-first policies that “hamper efforts to actually improve bicycle safety” and uphold a culture of “unfettered automobility.” Canadian provinces that mandate helmets do not register lower injury rates.

When governments design streets to protect everyone — such as in the Netherlands or cycling-friendly cities like Copenhagen — people rarely wear helmets and their crash and injury rates remain low.

“What distinguishes them is a really high quality street design,” said Furnas. “My sense is the Mamdani administration understands this and is really focused on having a high-quality protected bike lane network.” However, the rise of much faster e-bikes has driven an increase in injuries — even in the Netherlands, where acoustic bike crash rates have otherwise remained flat.

Here in New York City, the post-pandemic explosion of e-bikes and other battery-powered devices has brought about more emergency room visits. But cars still account for the vast majority of road deaths, and recent studies continue to reinforce that better street infrastructure as the primary means of curbing traffic injuries and deaths.

A spokesperson for Mamdani emphasized that the administration has championed both helmets and safer street design. Under the new mayor, DOT relaunched several bike and bus lane projects that were abandoned by the more car-focused predecessor Eric Adams.

“New Yorkers shouldn’t have to choose between wearing helmets that help protect against head injuries and infrastructure designs that reduce fatalities and ensure that everyone is protected when using our roads,” said Jeremy Edwards. “This administration is providing both, and we will continue to do so.”

Known dangers

On the same day Mamdani posted his video, two New York City drivers killed two cyclists and fled. Within a week, a motorist mowed down a third cyclist and fled. The three wrecks took place on streets with car-dominant infrastructure that endanger New Yorkers — a reality made clear by the many people whom car drivers injured in collisions in the same places.

Paulina Tec Choc, 29, was waiting at the corner of Jamaica Avenue and Cypress Hills Street in Brooklyn on her e-bike around 5:50 a.m., when a motorist struck her from behind and ran her over before fleeing.

Tec Choc, who was wearing a helmet, suffered “severe trauma to the head and body” and died at a nearby hospital. “She always wore a helmet,” said her boss, Osman Cevallos. The intersection where she died recorded 57 reported crashes that injured 29 people, including three more cyclists and four pedestrians, over the last five years.

Cypress Hills Street is supposed to include a protected cycling lane, according to the Department of Transportation‘s bike map, but the path only has paint at the corner where a driver murdered Tec Choc. The remainder of the intersection is a typical New York car sewer: wide roadways with slip lanes and two-way traffic. All of these features encourage fast and dangerous driving.

Jamaica Avenue and Cypress Hills Street is a car sewer.

The second fatal crash occured just before 9:30 p.m. at Bruckner Boulevard and Longwood Avenue in the Bronx, where a speeding motorist blew through a red light and initiated a chain-reaction crash with multiple vehicles, killing 51-year-old father-of-five Angelo Camero, who was cycling home, and injuring another 37-year-old woman in a car.

The intersection features a two-way bike path on the sidewalk, but it is completely surrounded by wide roadways that induce fast, unsafe driving. 120 people have been injured there in 139 reported collisions since 2022, including another three cyclists, a pedestrian, and 113 people in cars.

The third cyclist, 40-year-old Brooklynite Mamadou Diallo — who was also wearing a helmet — was making a left turn at East 54th Street and Avenue I when the driver of a BMW sedan slammed into him.

Although this intersection saw fewer reported crashes than the other two — five collisions, including two that injured a cyclist and a pedestrian over five years — its design still lacks safety infrastructure for people outside of cars, despite the nearby school. This pattern persists across much of Brooklyn’s southern half.

Transportation Alternatives called on Mamdani to come up with a comprehensive plan in response to the spate of deaths, and the group plans to stage a “die-in” at City Hall Park at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

“Overwhelmingly, the threats for cyclists are from cars and there’s a very limited amount of things a helmet can do when you’re struck by a driver,” Furnas said.

Additional reporting by Poppy Wilkinson

El Niño will likely increase in intensity through the end of 2026 and into 2027, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Extreme weather, including drought and heavy rainfall, threaten farmers’ livelihoods, but food security and policy experts say it’s still possible to mitigate losses. 

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is urging governments to prepare agriculture, water systems, and vulnerable communities before El Niño reaches its peak. The agency is strengthening seasonal forecasting to help countries avoid disaster. 

“We have the data and it is not too late for early action,” Lifeng Li, Director of the Land and Water Division for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), tells Food Tank. WMO states that these early measures help governments protect both livelihoods and food supplies preventing crises when extreme weather arrives.

For farmers, preparation cannot wait until harvest, says Andrew Kruczkiewicz, Senior Researcher at Columbia University and Principal Investigator within the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) at Columbia Climate School. “Governments should combine seasonal forecasts with local community knowledge to make practical decisions that translate into actions before disasters unfold,” he tells Food Tank.

Kruczkiewicz highlights the importance of accurately communicating risk and understanding farmer’s needs during the early planning. He also wants to see governments distribute drought-tolerant seeds, expand irrigation, improve water storage, and strengthen agricultural extension programs. 

Flooding also puts logistics and infrastructure at risk. “Damaged roads, bridges, and storage facilities can prevent farmers from bringing food to market even when harvests survive,” Kruczkiewicz tells Food Tank. Infrastructural improvements to protect these systems can help keep food moving during extreme weather. 

Regions including South America, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are some of the regions most likely to be hit hardest by El Niño’s effects. Adam Scaife, Head of long-range prediction at the UK Met Office, also expects worsening drought and flooding across parts of India, Australia. These regions produce many of the world’s staple crops, including maize, rice, soybeans, wheat, coffee, and cocoa. 

El Niño is expected to arrive as global food systems are already under pressure from geopolitical conflicts, volatile input costs, and fragile supply chains. Sarah Kapnick, Global Head of Climate Advisory at JPMorgan, warns that the climate pattern could compound these existing disruptions.

Fertilizer markets illustrate how these pressures can amplify challenges, according to Kapnick. Delays in nitrogenous fertilizers shipments by the war in Iran may reduce yields. If lower harvests align with further disruptions, she states commodity prices and food inflation may rise for months afterward. 

The World Bank recommends strengthening international cooperation to maintain stable global food supplies. Coordinated action on trade, fertilizer supplies, market monitoring, food reserves, and climate preparedness can help countries respond to disruptions before they escalate into broader food insecurity. Global cooperation can also help scale the solutions.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) highlights the importance of building resilience into long-term growth architecture. “Investing in resilience now will allow a more sustainable transition into the future” Sara Mbago-Bhunu, Director of East and Southern Africa Division at the IFAD, said during a recent episode of Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg. Mbago points at promoting agroforestry, protecting water sources and supporting soil fertility to strengthen agricultural systems and deliver long-term resilience. 

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Thadd Selden, The Creative Commons

The post The Race to Protect Food Systems: Supporting Farmers Before El Niño appeared first on Food Tank.

Teachers earned 25.2 percent less than comparable college graduates in other professions in 2025, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

The relative teacher pay penalty — which is adjusted for education, experience, and demographic characteristics — was a slight improvement from 2024’s record high of 26.9 percent, but still more than four times the 6.1 percent penalty recorded in 1996.

In other words, teachers earned on average 74.8 cents on the dollar in 2025 compared with other college graduates — much less than the relative 93.9 cents on the dollar that teachers earned in 1996. When broken down by gender, the relative teacher pay penalty was 34.5 percent for men and 20.0 percent for women.

Overall, simple inflation-adjusted weekly wages for public school teachers fell 6.2 percent over the last three decades, while wages for other college graduates rose 28.8 percent over the same period.

Teachers were paid less than other college graduates in every state, with relative teacher pay gaps ranging from 10.4 percent in Rhode Island to 40.7 percent in Colorado. The teacher pay penalty was at least 25 percent in 25 states.

While teachers typically receive better benefits packages than other professionals, this only partially offsets the growing wage penalty that teachers face. After accounting for the difference in benefits, teachers’ total compensation penalty was 14.5 percent in 2025.

As the report explains, providing teachers with competitive pay is necessary to retain and attract qualified workers. While there are many important factors impacting teacher retention and recruitment, pay consistently lands near the top of any list.

Reversing these trends will require targeted, sustained investment in public education at the local, state, and federal levels. It will also require stronger support for public-sector collective bargaining, which has long been a driver of better pay and job quality for teachers.

“The decades-long teacher pay penalty has taken a heavy toll on public education. Yet, policymakers have failed to make the needed investments to reverse course. That failure is especially troubling in a country as wealthy as the United States, with more than enough resources for its public schools to be the envy of the world,” said report author Sylvia Allegretto, who is a senior economist at CEPR and research associate at EPI

.

California Legislature approves bill easing access to clean, affordable ‘balcony solar’ Anthony Lacey August 25, 2026

SACRAMENTO – The Environmental Working Group today applauds the California Legislature for passing a bill that will help Californians invest in clean energy while also tackling sky-high energy bills by making it easier to install small, affordable “balcony solar” systems.

Senate Bill 868, known as the Plug and Play Solar Act, would eliminate red tape that has kept these systems from being placed in apartments, condos and single-family homes. The legislation would also ensure the systems comply with strict safety standards.

The bill is authored by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and sponsored by EWG and the Abundance Network. SB 868 heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his signature.

“This is the most exciting clean energy idea around,”  said Bernadette Del Chiaro, EWG’s senior vice president for California. “With this bill, California is poised to fling its doors wide open to a real, tangible affordability solution for everyday consumers.

“Solar energy is a no-brainer for California and we applaud Sen. Wiener and his legislative colleagues for their hard work to put this critical clean energy solution on the governor’s desk,” she added. 

Balcony solar is thriving in Europe – in Germany more than 4 million systems have been installed. Efforts to ease their deployment are gathering steam in other countries.

But in the U.S., regulatory barriers keep this technology out of reach for many. If enacted, SB 868 would remove those barriers while ensuring the systems meet safety standards. 

Homeowners and renters could then buy portable balcony solar panels from retailers and plug them in without first having to get an interconnection agreement from their utility. The cost and time involved with getting that agreement has been a barrier to greater deployment of these systems. 

The Assembly amended the bill with a provision sunsetting the interconnection exemption on Jan. 1, 2030 – language sought by the utilities – but SB 868 gives the market four years to take off and the Legislature has the opportunity to remove the sunset in the future. 

Solving an urgent public health problem 

EWG this month released a report showing that California is experiencing more frequent and dangerous heat days, with extreme heat events up 55% statewide threatening public health and safety without access to cooling. But soaring utility bills mean millions of people can’t afford the air conditioning that could keep them safe. 

Balcony solar is one solution, helping lower electricity costs and making it cheaper to run vital cooling. With 2027 shaping up to be the hottest year on record, it can’t come soon enough. 

That’s why EWG is calling on policy makers to prioritize solutions like customer-sited solar energy that can drastically lower or eliminate annual utility costs for air conditioning.  If it becomes law, SB 868 would help millions of families tackle air conditioning costs.

“These small, easy-to-use solar panels will give everyone, including renters, the relief they desperately need on our outrageous energy bills,” said Wiener. “Electricity costs have reached ridiculous levels here in California and the Plug and Play Solar Act provides a much-needed tool to provide relief. It’s time to put money back in the pockets of Californians.”

A single 400-watt balcony solar system can cover roughly 14% of the average apartment’s electricity usage, providing savings of about $250 per year. While the cost of balcony solar starts around $500 today, with broader adoption enabled by SB 868, EWG expects costs to fall, making solar even more accessible to renters and low-income households.

California electricity rates have nearly doubled over the past decade, leaving the state with the nation’s second-highest energy prices. SB 868 provides consumers with a straightforward way to take control of their energy bills.

And the systems are easy to use. “Installing balcony solar is as simple as plugging an appliance like a toaster into a standard wall outlet,” said Del Chiaro. 

“At a time when many struggle to pay their energy bills, balcony solar is a powerful cost-cutting tool that also helps the state meet its clean energy goals,” she added.

SB 868 would also ensure these plug-and-play systems meet strict safety standards. All systems must be certified by UL, or Underwriters Laboratories, the global independent safety science company, or an equivalent national testing lab. To protect utility workers and prevent electrical hazards, systems must automatically shut off within seconds if the grid goes down. 

System size is capped at 1,200 watts, enough to power everyday appliances such as fridges, lights, Wi-Fi routers and AC units.

California is not the first state to remove barriers to balcony solar. Utah became the first in 2025, and so far, eight other states have enacted laws to do the same. 

With today’s vote, California joins New York as another state with a balcony solar bill sitting on the governor’s desk. Newsom has 30 days to take action on SB 868. The California Assembly and Senate both gave the bill strong bipartisan support, with over 90% approval in both chambers.

“California may not be the first out of the gates but we are the biggest prize,” said Del Chiaro. “If Gov. Newsom signs this bill into law, the size of our market will radically transform and accelerate the adoption of this brilliant new way to tackle both climate change and energy affordability.” 

###

The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.

Areas of Focus Energy Renewable Energy California SB 868 would end red tape blocking millions from utility bill savings Press Contact Alex Formuzis alex@ewg.org (202) 667-6982 August 25, 2026

This article The fight to clean up the damage of US war in Laos was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

In the city of Phonsavan in northern Laos, May Sinoun, a 107-year-old woman with a gentle smile, leaned forward on her chair. She tells how she survived one of the most intensive bombing campaigns in world history. 

“During the war, if we stayed at home, we had to sleep in pits or holes,” she said. “At night, even a small light could be dangerous. One person died because the plane saw the light and dropped bombs. If we fell down, we would cover ourselves with grass to pretend to be dead.”

From 1964 to 1973 the U.S. led a massive bombing campaign along a supply route it called the Ho Chi Minh Trail. “Operation Barrel Roll,” as it was called, provided support to a CIA-led clandestine army in efforts to subdue the communist Pathet Lao and Northern Vietnamese fighters. The vast majority of victims, however, were civilians. 

May Sinuon, 107, survived the US bombing of a school in Laos. (Brendan Maslauskas Dunn)

May Sinoun survived the blast from a bomb dropped on a school she was in, but her friends were killed in front of her. She is reminded of the bombing daily. “I have wounds from that time,” she said as she squinted her eyes and contorted her body. She pointed to her arms, shoulders and back, where the pain is most intense. Shrapnel has worn down her muscles for over half a century. 

Daily reminders of the war are ubiquitous in Sinoun’s province of Xieng Khouang. The ancient Plain of Jars is covered in bomb craters and a number of funerary jars thousands of years old cracked by the blasts. Defused bombs are scattered across the province, used as construction material, garden beds and as decoration in cafes. Spoons and chopsticks in restaurants are made by melting down aluminum from the bombs. 

But the deadliest reminders of the war are hidden in the mountains, farms and villages of Laos. Millions of bombs never blew up. Most of them lie just beneath the surface in Xieng Khouang and surrounding northern provinces, and in the southern regions of Laos that border Vietnam. Finding and removing the bombs is a labor-intensive, slow, dangerous process. At the height of the antiwar movement, activists demanded the U.S. government come up with a long-term postwar plan to remove the bombs. Decades after the movement subsided, a small network of grassroots activists has continued to advance the demand under incredibly challenging circumstances. 

#newsletter-block_dea3a91185a098f1d2bbe12880202bd1 { background: #ECECEC; color: #000000; } #newsletter-block_dea3a91185a098f1d2bbe12880202bd1 #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL { border-color:#000000 !important; color: #000000 !important; } Sign Up for our Newsletter

We’ll send you a weekly email with the latest articles.

The most bombed country in history

“Laos is the most heavily bombed country per capita in history,” said Sera Koulabdara, who leads Legacies of War, an organization dedicated to finding solutions to the long-term impacts of the American war in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. “The U.S. dropped more than 2.5 million tons of ordnance across 580,000 bombing missions — equal to a planeload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years.” In total, across the three countries, the U.S. military dropped some 13 million tons of ordnance.

Locals who survived the war say that “everything” was bombed — houses, ancient temples, hospitals, farms, schools, entire villages. The ancient city of Xieng Khouang was completely leveled by the U.S. bombing campaign, save for the crumbling remains of some old stupas, a temple and a few French colonial buildings. 

One of the more devastating legacies of the war is the unexploded ordnance, or UXO, which still claims lives in Laos every month. It’s estimated that over 30% of the ordnance dropped during the war did not explode. “Today vast amounts of land remain contaminated with unexploded ordnance,” Koulabdara said. “It continues to pose a threat to citizens in all three countries, with many survivors permanently disabled and their families impoverished.”

A poster warns about the dangers of unexploded US ordnance, which has killed over 20,000 people in Laos since the war ended in 1975. (Brendan Maslauskas Dunn)

On a backcountry road in Xieng Khouang, trucks filled with workers stir up clouds of dust as they navigate the crumbling asphalt. The workers will spend the next few weeks finding and defusing bombs in a remote mountain village. Thousands of government and NGO workers risk their lives daily in the nerve-wrecking hunt for UXO.

Koulabdara’s organization coordinates with a vast patchwork of NGOs, volunteers, grassroots organizations, activists and government workers who are dedicated to making Laos bomb-free. Koulabdara said the group brings together “veterans, members of the diaspora community, government officials, students, artists and supporters from across the globe.” 

If the work continues at its current rate, however, it is projected to take 1,000 years to clear Laos of UXO. This is a fact that weighs heavily on the people that live and work among the bombs.

The rebellion of the 1960s

Demands for the U.S. to make reparations and clean up the millions of bombs scattered all over Southeast Asia once emanated from the ranks of a mass antiwar movement in the U.S. and communist liberation movements in Southeast Asia. 

At its peak, the U.S. antiwar movement was ablaze with resistance on many fronts. Students, workers, the Black Freedom struggle, the feminist movement and the broader New Left rose up in the political whirlwind of the time, not only calling for an end to the bloodshed, but at times openly declaring support for the communist movements in Southeast Asia. Organizations like Students for a Democratic Society swelled to nearly 100,000 members. 

A nine-year bombing campaign by the US leveled entire towns in Laos and left massive craters, like this one in Xieng Khouang province. (Brendan Maslauskas Dunn)

In May 1970, more than 4 million students launched a mass strike in response to the U.S. expansion of the war into Cambodia and Laos, and the FBI’s increased political repression of the Black Panther Party. Protests were held at over 700 U.S. colleges and universities. Occupations of buildings, mass teach-ins about the war and pitched battles with the authorities were common. 

The strike turned deadly at Kent State University when the National Guard opened fire on demonstrators, killing four. Eleven days later, police killed two students at Jackson State University. In total, nearly 100 people were wounded by authorities across the U.S. during the May strike. 

George Katsiaficas was deeply active in the antiwar movement and the New Left, struggles he has chronicled and theorized about in a host of books and articles. In 1972 he was invited to attend a conference in Versailles called the World Assembly for Peace and Independence of the Peoples of Indochina.

At the conference, he witnessed a deep and sincere form of solidarity in practice and was inspired by the speeches given by Vietnamese revolutionaries. It was there that he learned about cluster munitions — the kind that are still killing people in Laos today.

“The Vietnamese gave me a three-inch-high stack of photos about cluster bombs,” Katsiaficas said. He recalled being told, “we don’t think the American people know about this” and being urged to educate them when he returned home. Although there was some public knowledge of the U.S. using cluster bombs in Southeast Asia and even actions targeting their production, Katsiaficas said this was the first time he learned about them. 

He was horrified. Cluster bombs are designed to open in midair and release smaller “bombies” over an area as large as five football fields. The bombies are filled with plastic and fiberglass shrapnel so they could not be detected by X-ray. They are specifically designed to kill and injure humans. 

Previous Coverage

A 40-year fight against cluster bombs offers lessons to stop the US-Israel weapons pipeline

“I was outraged at the U.S. government. I’m still outraged,” Katsiaficas said. He went back to the U.S. and gave the information on cluster munitions to other activists who created brochures and distributed them en masse. He and other activists drove across the U.S. in a speaking tour to mobilize local antiwar and activist groups to protest the 1972 Republican and Democratic national conventions. Education about cluster munitions became part of their presentation. 

“People were genuinely shocked,” he said. “Outrage, I would say, was the main reaction that people had. Indignation, you know, digging their heels in to really fight against the war. It just made people more determined than ever that the United States was evil.”

As more people became aware of cluster bombs, more protests were organized against their use. 

Sera Koulabdara said that over the years, this mass organizing, educational work and advocacy to pressure the U.S. government for reparations and cleanup has certainly helped her group and other NGOs secure U.S. funding to address these “legacies of war.”

The revolt of American soldiers who turned against the war was also at the heart of the movement. 

Susan Schnall was a lieutenant and nurse in the Navy during the war, and now serves as president of Veterans for Peace. She made headlines in 1969 when she was dismissed from the Navy for wearing her uniform at a veterans antiwar march in San Francisco. She later launched a daring action with two other activists where they flew a plane over military bases in the Bay Area and dropped thousands of antiwar flyers. “When I look back on it, I think we were just very, very lucky that they didn’t shoot us down,” Schnall said. She organized alongside other GIs and healthcare professionals, joining the Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Medical Aid for Indochina, which sent medical supplies and aid directly to North Vietnam. 

Map of U.S. bombing runs during the Vietnam War, with each black dot representing a 1,000‑pound bomb.

As the war progressed, and as more Americans began to see what the U.S. military was doing in Southeast Asia as mistaken, futile or inhumane, GI resistance surged. Vietnam Veterans Against the War and other antiwar veterans groups formed, and GI coffeehouses and underground newspapers sprung up across the country to organize soldiers against the war. Increasingly, more soldiers went AWOL, refused orders or refused to fight. Morale broke down in the military. In 1970 alone, the Pentagon reported 209 fraggings (targeted killings of officers by soldiers). There were 65,643 desertions from the Army that same year. This was the largest form of soldier-led resistance to a war in the history of the United States.  

The mass antiwar movement and GI resistance played a critical role in hastening the end of the war. The military conflict finally ended in 1975, but economic sanctions and political isolation became U.S. policy in the region for decades. Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos lay in ruins, UXO continued to kill and maim, and the U.S. reneged on the Paris Peace Accords agreement in its promise to give $3.25 billion in reconstruction aid to Vietnam. No similar aid was ever promised to Laos. 

From national liberation to NGOs

Fifty years after the war’s end, the demands for reparations are now muted. The movement has long since faded away, and the communist forces in Southeast Asia became consumed by bureaucracy and state power, replacing the revolutionary language of Marxism and liberation with the capitalist language of development and finance. 

With no mass antiwar movement using disruption and direct action to pressure the U.S. government to address the legacies of war, a small network of volunteers and grassroots activists have filled this void and turned toward raising public awareness, lobbying and directly assisting with UXO education and removal on the ground in Laos.

Workers from the Mines Advisory Group prepare for a three-week mission to find unexploded bombs in the mountains of Xieng Khouang. (Brendan Maslauskas Dunn)

In the 1990s the U.S. started to change its policy towards Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia and work more closely with its former foes. As more money for international aid and development began to trickle in, NGOs became increasingly dominant in efforts to clear UXO. While these shifts have benefited people most at risk from UXO, they also come with strings attached. 

Susan Hammond’s organization, the War Legacies Project, was once offered a $20,000 grant from a development consulting firm that she calls a “D.C. Beltway bandit for-profit corporation.” Her organization was slowed down by bureaucracy and constraints set by the donors. “I would never do it again,” she said. “A lot of the funding that’s going to Vietnam right now and Laos is going through these for-profit entities. NGOs are all having a really difficult time, and so they tend to not want to take on issues that might be sensitive.”

Funding to clean up UXO in Vietnam often comes from the Department of Defense and USAID, Hammond added. “They don’t do it for any kind of reparations, or even feel guilty by any means. It’s a way for them to get closer to the Vietnamese military.”

This also happened in Laos when President Barack Obama visited the country in 2016 and pledged over $90 million in aid to address UXO. The closer political relationship between both countries has been beneficial for American corporations as they vie to establish new markets, and for the U.S. military and government as they work more closely with Laos in a U.S.-led attempt to counter Chinese dominance in Southeast Asia. 

Activists have to grapple with the ethics of getting funding from the U.S. government, and in particular from agencies like USAID, which was central to the war operation in Southeast Asia.

Susan Schnall said that Veterans for Peace had an opportunity to apply for a grant from USAID to assist survivors of the effects of Agent Orange. “We had major issues and disagreements, and some people … wouldn’t take the money. Then there were others of us that said we need to take care of these children. We need to clean up the land.” In the end, the money was not offered. 

When President Trump froze funding to USAID and UXO programs in Laos in early 2025, the limitations of doing work contingent on funds from the U.S. government became painfully clear to people in Laos. Thousands of de-mining workers were taken out of the field, programs were shuttered and many NGOs heavily scaled back their operations or halted them altogether.

Legacies of War took a series of actions to reverse the funding freeze, Koulabdara said. “When many partners hesitated to go public, we stepped forward — using our voices, our credibility and decades of collective experience to reframe the national conversation on U.S. foreign aid and war legacy. We refused to allow the narrative to be so narrow.”

Legacies of War put pressure on the U.S. government through public education and delivered a letter signed by 17 former American ambassadors to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, urging him to continue funding UXO removal.

#support-block_e1b9ea31b4acc91e50a5f88fe830c67d { background: #000000; color: #ffffff; } Support Us

Waging Nonviolence depends on reader support. Make a donation today!

Donate

The funding began to flow again after months of mounting public pressure and organizing, and a Supreme Court decision upholding a lower court’s ruling that the Trump administration must release over $2 billion in frozen funds.

What will it take ultimately to make Laos bomb-free? It’s a difficult question, but there is an acute sense from volunteers on the ground that it will take much more than increased education, awareness and funding. 

Another mass movement could address the war legacies in Southeast Asia and also stop current wars, interventions and support for genocide. Until that day comes, the people of Laos must shoulder the bulk of the burden, clearing one bomb at a time. 

This article The fight to clean up the damage of US war in Laos was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Letter to the Editor By MARY ROSE

More water studies are not needed for The Hydrogen Facility in Questa, New Mexico.

The fact that the water source was switched at the last moment in the fall of 2025, after years of public relations meetings with KCEC [Kit Carson Electric Cooperative] and the Mayor of Questa who claimed it would be ‘reclaimed water from the former mine’—indicates a lack of transparency that has existed from the beginning.

It would be good to see in writing from Chevron why the water source changed from treated wastewater to well water.

The concerned public has been going to every single meeting: Questa Council meetings (although the Mayor of Questa has not allowed discussion of the Hydrogen Facility to be placed on the council agenda), KCEC Board meetings, Taos County Board of Commissioners meetings, and many other meetings to voice opposition to an extremely water-intensive, inefficient Hydrogen Facility.

The Hydrogen Facility cannot be built without hollowing out our water table to do it. Wells are already running dry, global warming is rapidly worsening, and New Mexico is in a historic megadrought with town after town declaring severe water shortages.

The cold, hard fact is that the climate in New Mexico has changed to aridification. Climate change is real. 

In fact, in 2022, The New Mexico Water Policy and Infrastructure Task Force concluded that the state faces ‘a dire 750,000 acre-foot water shortage over the next 50 years due to climate change and higher temperatures.’

Given this statewide study—and the recognition of the lack of water New Mexico is facing—the Hydrogen Facility should never have been proposed in 2022.

The study goes on to say that, driven by rising temperatures, shrinking snowpack, and chronic over-pumping, the state’s renewable water supplies are projected to decline by 25% to 30%, threatening communities, agriculture, and ecosystems. 

Temperatures across New Mexico are expected to rise 3 to 7 degrees higher than normal, severely reducing surface runoff and natural aquifer recharge. This is already happening.

In light of this new reality, the Questa Hydrogen Facility should not be constructed—it should be cancelled.

A responsible stewardship of the environment, and the future of the community, would recognize this new reality and make the right decisions not to go forward with the Hydrogen Facility–but instead–ensure that future generations in Questa will be protected and be given the opportunity to thrive.

99.5 percent of nearly 16,000 comments opposed the Bureau of Land Management’s proposal to gut leasing reforms

DENVER — An analysis released today by the Center for Western Priorities finds overwhelming opposition to the Bureau of Land Management’s proposal to roll back its 2024 oil and gas leasing rule.

CWP’s analysis found that of 15,822 comments posted to the docket for this rule on regulations.gov, 99.5 percent opposed the rollback, most commonly on the grounds that weaker bonding requirements would leave taxpayers to cover cleanup costs companies walk away from. Just 43 comments, or 0.27 percent, supported it, and 42 comments were unclear. CWP analyzed all 15,822 comments submitted and posted to the docket to determine whether each comment supported, opposed, or took an unclear position on the proposal. (See methodology below.)

The true scale of public engagement is likely even larger; fourteen of the filings in the docket are bundles of signatures collected by advocacy groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Climate Hawks Vote Civic Action, and the National Wildlife Federation Action Fund. Each bundle counts as a single comment in the docket, but together they represent an estimated 120,000 additional people who submitted a comment via a form letter rather than submitting an individual comment.

(function () { var iframe = document.getElementById('cwp-chart-blm-2025-0037-stance-pie'); if (!iframe) return;

window.addEventListener('message', function (event) { if (event.origin !== 'https://westernpriorities.org') return; var data = event.data; if (!data || data.type !== 'cwp-iframe-resize' || data.id !== 'cwp-blm-2025-0037-stance-pie') return; iframe.style.height = data.height + 'px'; }); })();

BLM’s proposed rule, published in the Federal Register on June 24, 2026, would undo key provisions of the 2024 Oil and Gas Leasing Rule, which strengthened bonding requirements, raised royalty rates, and gave the public more say in lease sales on public lands. The rollback would slash minimum bonding requirements from $150,000 to $10,000 per lease, cut the minimum royalty rate back to 12.5 percent (down from the 16.67 percent rate set by the 2024 rule),  shrink the public protest period on lease sales to just 10 days, and expand noncompetitive leasing. The comment period on the proposed rule closed August 24, 2026. BLM is required to review and respond to substantive public comments before finalizing the rule.

The 2024 rule was itself the product of a lengthy rulemaking process aimed at updating regulations that, in some cases, hadn’t been revised in decades. BLM has said the current proposal is intended to implement changes required by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and executive orders directing federal agencies to expand domestic energy production and reduce regulatory burdens.

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Policy Director Rachael Hamby:

“Nearly sixteen thousand people took the time to weigh in on this proposal, and the message could not be more clear: the public wants to keep guardrails in place that protect taxpayers, public lands, and honest oil and gas operators. Over 99 percent of commenters told the agency to abandon this rollback, and the Trump administration should listen to the American people.”

“For decades, taxpayers picked up the tab when drillers walked away from wells they couldn’t afford to clean up because bonding requirements were set too low to cover costs. Rolling bond rates back doesn’t modernize the oil and gas program—it just recreates the same mess that Western communities have spent decades trying to clean up.”

Methodology

The Center for Western Priorities downloaded every comment and attachment posted to the docket BLM-2025-0037. Using a combination of keyword tagging, large language model analysis, and human classification, each comment was classified as “Oppose,” “Support,” or “Unclear.” The full classification of comments is available for download.

Learn more

• A closer look at the Trump administration’s proposed oil and gas rule – Westwise blog

• Trump bonding rates could cost taxpayers billions – The Landscape podcast

• Statement on the Bureau of Land Management’s Final Oil and Gas Rule – Center for Western Priorities

• Interior’s oil rule changes silence landowners, put land at risk, groups say • North Dakota Monitor – North Dakota Monitor

 

Feature image: Bakersfield Field Office oil derrick, BLM California

The post Commenters overwhelmingly oppose BLM’s rollback of oil and gas rule, analysis finds appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently launched a process to significantly revise its Travel Management Rule, which guides where motorized vehicles are and are not allowed on almost 200 million acres of national forests and grasslands.

The USDA is proposing to flip the U.S. Forest Service’s longstanding approach to travel management on its head, forcing local forests to allow motorized vehicles everywhere except for places that are specifically closed. The current rule requires motorized vehicles to stay on a designated system of roads, trails and areas in national forests and grasslands and is an essential policy for wildlife conservation, balanced recreation, and public safety.

This comes directly on the heels of the USDA’s proposed repeal of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which would make 45 million acres of remote backcountry forests available for clearcut logging, road-building and other development, unleashing back-to-back blows to our national forests. Combined, these actions are part of the administration’s systematic dismantling of the rules and safeguards that keep national forests safe, accessible, and managed for everyone.

“This is yet another egregious attack in the systematic dismantling of public lands management of our national forests,” said Dan Hartinger, senior director for agency policy at The Wilderness Society. “Travel management provides the basic guardrails that let hikers, hunters, anglers, and riders share the same forest without chaos; removing those guardrails threatens the freedom of all public lands users to safely enjoy our national forests the way they choose. Paired with the proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule, this destructive agenda sells out future generations’ enjoyment of our forests in order to hand them over for corporate profits.”

“The Travel Management Rule creates a framework that balances uses on national forest lands. It draws on local decision-making processes to support all user groups in enjoying public lands while also protecting these places for future generations,” said Anneka Williams, policy director at Winter Wildlands Alliance. “Removing this framework for shared use threatens diverse user experiences on public lands. Coming on the heels of the proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule, it is clear that this announcement is part of the administration’s broader agenda to dismantle our public lands as we know and love them.”

“The Travel Management Rule is why dirtbikers and snowmobilers can share national forests with hikers and backcountry skiers without conflict. It’s built on local decision-making that ensures no user group gets steamrolled and all our national forest values are protected,” said Hilary Eisen, federal policy director at Wild Montana. “Just days after doubling down on repealing the Roadless Rule, this announcement makes the administration’s plan obvious: gut the rules requiring the Forest Service to manage our natural resources carefully and listen to the public, then open the gates to industry and extraction. The Roadless rescission already showed that Forest Service leadership doesn’t value public input, science, or expert management. They’ve lost the public’s trust, and should expect the public to hold them accountable.”

“The USDA’s announcement to gut the Travel Management Rule and the Roadless Rule in the same week is a one-two punch that together deals a tremendous blow to wildlife,” said Vera Smith, director of national forests and public lands at Defenders of Wildlife. “The Travel Management Rule states simply that motorized vehicles must stay on routes and areas designated locally for that use. The Forest Service issued the rule over 20 years ago to curb damage from unmanaged recreation, reduce user conflict and protect public safety. Rescinding it now is irresponsible and reckless.”

“Just after this administration moved to eliminate protections for Roadless Areas, it is now proposing to gut the Travel Management Rule that for 20 years has ensured the Forest Service manages motorized recreation in a manner that minimizes damage, protects other visitors, and responds when vehicle use is harming public land resources,” said Adam Rissien rewilding manager at WildEarth Guardians. “Eliminating those protections will not improve access. It would replace locally developed plans with uncertainty, conflict, and unmanaged use.”

“Just days after its proposed rescission of the Roadless Rule, the administration is now attempting to open up our national forests to more off-road vehicle use that will degrade the landscape and disturb wildlife and other land users,” said Thomas Delehanty, senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office. “Some places in our national forests are meant for quiet, undisturbed recreation and protecting sensitive wildlife, including endangered species. This rule would open all roads and trails to ORVs by default, meaning areas set aside for hiking, hunting, or horseback riding could soon be fair game to four-wheelers and dirt bikes.”

“The Trump Administration’s proposal to fundamentally alter the Travel Management Rule will change for the worse how Utahns experience national forests throughout the state, from the Wasatch Front to redrock country outside Escalante and Moab,” said Laura Peterson, senior attorney at Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “The proposal will place a heavy thumb on the scale to prioritize off-road vehicle use at the expense of all other uses of the national forests, including the protection of wildlife, cultural sites, streams and wild places. This move will not improve access to public lands, but it will make the experience of recreating on public lands worse for all users, including hikers, bikers, hunters, anglers and riders.”

“For over two decades the Travel Management Rule has ensured our National Forests are managed to host an array of user groups, while safeguarding the health and future of our public lands,” said Peggie dePasquale, National Forest Wildlands Director at the Wyoming Wilderness Association (WWA). “We are now witnessing a troublesome undoing of this effective management tool that the American people, especially here in Wyoming, have come to rely on for sustainable and relied upon access. It is critical that we raise our voices to send a clear message that the proposed revision goes against public interest and is bad news for the future of our natural world.”

“The existing travel management planning process allows the public to meaningfully weigh in on where vehicles do and don’t belong in our national forests. Repealing this rule hands that decision to political appointees in Washington, who have decided that every road, trail, and meadow should be open to motorized use, no matter the conflicts with other users or wildlife,” said Center for Western Priorities (CWP) Communications Director Kate Groetzinger. “Repealing this rule is also a recipe for more wildfire in a region that cannot afford it. Putting hot engines deeper into dry forests during longer and hotter fire seasons will increase wildfire risk, and Western communities will pay for it.”

Travel management is supported by a diverse group of public lands users.
This proposal to revise the Travel Management Rule is out of touch with everyday Americans who use our forested public lands. Motorized groups, recreationalists, sportsmen, conservation organizations, local communities and other public land users nationwide have spoken out in opposition:

• American Hiking Society, Back Country Horsemen of American, American Trails, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, Bureau of Land Management, (7/21/2026).
• Motorcycle Industry Council, Specialty Vehicle Institute of America and Recreational Off-Highway Vehicle Association, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, (10/27/2025)
• American Endurance Ride Conference, American Hiking Society, American Horse Council, American Trails, Appalachian Mountain Club, Back Country Horsemen of America, Equine Land Conservation Resource, Move United, North Carolina Horse Council, Pacific Crest Trail Association, Partnership for the National Trails System, Rails to Trails Conservancy, Washington Trials Association, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, Forest Service (6/5/2026).
• American Motorcyclist Association, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, (12/15/2025).
• Rural & Agriculture Council of America & United States Cattlemen’s Association, Letter Opposing full repeal of Travel Management Rule & Requesting a robust public process, (6/24/26).
• Outdoor Alliance & members Access Fund American Canoe Association, American Whitewater, International Mountain Bicycling Association, Winter Wildlands Alliance, The Mountaineers, American Alpine Club, Colorado Mountain Club, Surfrider Foundation, Runners for Public Lands, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, (6/12/26).
• Off Road Business Association, Inc, United Four Wheel Drive Association, One Voice & United Snowmobile Alliance, Letter Opposing “outright repeal” of Travel Management Rule, (1/26/26).
• Public Lands Foundation, Position Statement supporting current Travel Management Policy, (4/25).

Last week, the Kearney County Board of Commissioners took an important step for both wildlife conservation and the sustainable tourism industry in Nebraska. On Tuesday, August 18, 2026, the...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

August 25, 2026

Recreation, Conservation Groups Unite Against Forest Service Travel Rule Rollback  – 8.25.26 Proposal would gut protections for fish and wildlife, create chaos for public lands users

Contacts:
Grant Stevens, Communications Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (319) 427-0260; grant@suwa.org

Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) launched a process to significantly revise its Travel Management Rule, which guides where motorized vehicles are and are not allowed on almost 200 million acres of national forests and grasslands. 

The USDA is proposing to flip the U.S. Forest Service’s longstanding approach to travel management on its head, forcing local forests to allow motorized vehicles everywhere except for places that are specifically closed. The current rule requires motorized vehicles to stay on a designated system of roads, trails and areas in national forests and grasslands and is an essential policy for wildlife conservation, balanced recreation and public safety. 

This comes directly on the heels of the USDA’s proposed repeal of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which would make 45 million acres of remote backcountry forests available for clearcut logging, road-building and other development, unleashing back-to-back blows to our national forests. Combined, these actions are part of the administration’s systematic dismantling of the rules and safeguards that keep national forests safe, accessible, and managed for everyone. 

Below are quotes from recreation and conservation organizations and additional information on the rule. 

“The Trump Administration’s proposal to fundamentally alter the Travel Management Rule will change for the worse how Utahns experience national forests throughout the state, from the Wasatch Front to redrock country outside Escalante and Moab,” said Laura Peterson, senior attorney at Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “The proposal will place a heavy thumb on the scale to prioritize off-road vehicle use at the expense of all other uses of the national forests, including the protection of wildlife, cultural sites, streams and wild places. This move will not improve access to public lands, but it will make the experience of recreating on public lands worse for all users, including hikers, bikers, hunters, anglers and riders.”  

“This is yet another egregious attack in the systematic dismantling of public lands management of our national forests,”  said Dan Hartinger, senior director for agency policy at The Wilderness Society. “Travel management provides the basic guardrails that let hikers, hunters, anglers, and riders share the same forest without chaos; removing those guardrails threatens the freedom of all public lands users to safely enjoy our national forests the way they choose. Paired with the proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule, this destructive agenda sells out future generations’ enjoyment of our forests in order to hand them over for corporate profits.”

“The Travel Management Rule creates a framework that balances uses on national forest lands. It draws on local decision-making processes to support all user groups in enjoying public lands while also protecting these places for future generations,” said Anneka Williams, Policy Director at Winter Wildlands Alliance. “Removing this framework for shared use threatens diverse user experiences on public lands. Coming on the heels of the proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule, it is clear that this announcement is part of the administration’s broader agenda to dismantle our public lands as we know and love them.”

“The Travel Management Rule is why dirtbikers and snowmobilers can share national forests with hikers and backcountry skiers without conflict. It’s built on local decision-making that ensures no user group gets steamrolled and all our national forest values are protected,” said Hilary Eisen, federal policy director at Wild Montana. “Just days after doubling down on repealing the Roadless Rule, this announcement makes the administration’s plan obvious: gut the rules requiring the Forest Service to manage our natural resources carefully and listen to the public, then open the gates to industry and extraction. The Roadless rescission already showed that Forest Service leadership doesn’t value public input, science, or expert management. They’ve lost the public’s trust, and should expect the public to hold them accountable.”

“The USDA’s announcement to gut the Travel Management Rule and the Roadless Rule in the same week is a one-two punch that together deals a tremendous blow to wildlife,” said Vera Smith, director of national forests and public lands at Defenders of Wildlife. “The Travel Management Rule states simply that motorized vehicles must stay on routes and areas designated locally for that use. The Forest Service issued the rule over 20 years ago to curb damage from unmanaged recreation, reduce user conflict and protect public safety. Rescinding it now is irresponsible and reckless.” 

“Just after this administration moved to eliminate protections for Roadless Areas, it is now  proposing to gut the Travel Management Rule that for 20 years has ensured the Forest Service manages motorized recreation in a manner that minimizes damage, protects other visitors, and responds when vehicle use is harming public land resources,” said Adam Rissien rewilding manager at WildEarth Guardians. “Eliminating those protections will not improve access. It would replace locally developed plans with uncertainty, conflict, and unmanaged use.”

“Just days after its proposed rescission of the Roadless Rule, the administration is now attempting to open up our national forests to more off-road vehicle use that will degrade the landscape and disturb wildlife and other land users,” said Thomas Delehanty, senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office. “Some places in our national forests are meant for quiet, undisturbed recreation and protecting sensitive wildlife, including endangered species. This rule would open all roads and trails to ORVs by default, meaning areas set aside for hiking, hunting, or horseback riding could soon be fair game to four-wheelers and dirt bikes.”

“For over two decades the Travel Management Rule has ensured our National Forests are managed to host an array of user groups, while safeguarding the health and future of our public lands,” shared Peggie dePasquale, National Forest Wildlands Director at the Wyoming Wilderness Association (WWA). “We are now witnessing a troublesome undoing of this effective management tool that the American people, especially here in Wyoming, have come to rely on for sustainable and relied upon access. It is critical that we raise our voices to send a clear message that the proposed revision goes against public interest and is bad news for the future of our natural world.”

“The existing travel management planning process allows the public to meaningfully weigh in on where vehicles do and don’t belong in our national forests. Repealing this rule hands that decision to political appointees in Washington, who have decided that every road, trail, and meadow should be open to motorized use, no matter the conflicts with other users or wildlife,” said Center for Western Priorities (CWP) Communications Director Kate Groetzinger. “Repealing this rule is also a recipe for more wildfire in a region that cannot afford it. Putting hot engines deeper into dry forests during longer and hotter fire seasons will increase wildfire risk, and Western communities will pay for it.”

***

Travel management is supported by a diverse group of public lands users
This proposal to revise the Travel Management Rule is out of touch with everyday Americans who use our forested public lands. Motorized groups, recreationalists, sportsmen, conservation organizations, local communities and other public land users nationwide have spoken out in opposition:

• American Hiking Society, Back Country Horsemen of American, American Trails, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, Bureau of Land Management, (7/21/2026).
• Motorcycle Industry Council, Specialty Vehicle Institute of America and Recreational Off-Highway Vehicle Association, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, (10/27/2025)
• American Endurance Ride Conference, American Hiking Society, American Horse Council, American Trails, Appalachian Mountain Club, Back Country Horsemen of America, Equine Land Conservation Resource, Move United, North Carolina Horse Council, Pacific Crest Trail Association, Partnership for the National Trails System, Rails to Trails Conservancy, Washington Trials Association, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, Forest Service (6/5/2026).
• American Motorcyclist Association, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, (12/15/2025).
• Rural & Agriculture Council of America & United States Cattlemen’s Association, Letter Opposing full repeal of Travel Management Rule & Requesting a robust public process, (6/24/26).
• Outdoor Alliance & members Access Fund American Canoe Association, American Whitewater, International Mountain Bicycling Association, Winter Wildlands Alliance, The Mountaineers, American Alpine Club, Colorado Mountain Club, Surfrider Foundation, Runners for Public Lands, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, (6/12/26).
• Off Road Business Association, Inc, United Four Wheel Drive Association, One Voice & United Snowmobile Alliance, Letter Opposing “outright repeal” of Travel Management Rule, (1/26/26). 
• Public Lands Foundation, Position Statement supporting current Travel Management Policy, (4/25).

About the Forest Service Travel Management Rule 

First established in 2005, the Travel Management Rule is a tool that aims to balance use on national forest lands and across different user groups and, when effectively implemented, creates high-quality recreation experiences for all groups while also conserving resources. It provides a consistent framework for forests to follow when writing travel management plans for wheeled or over-snow vehicles. 

During forest-specific travel management planning, local forest officials designate specific trails and areas for motorized use. This is essentially a zoning process where some areas are designated for motorized use, and other trails and areas are set aside for human-powered recreation, or to protect wildlife and other resources. Public participation is an important part of travel planning, and local voices, knowledge, and expertise are considered as part of the travel planning process.

Repealed executive orders helped protect wildlife, waters

On June 2, 2026, President Trump repealed two executive orders (11644 and 11989) that governed off-road vehicle use on public lands. For 54 years, these orders helped protect streams, wildlife and their habitats, and opportunities for safe recreation on Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, and National Park Service lands. 

###

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters from around the country dedicated to protecting America’s redrock wilderness. From offices in Moab, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC, our team of professionals defends the redrock, organizes support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, and stewards a world-renowned landscape. Learn more at www.suwa.org.

 

 

The post Recreation, Conservation Groups Unite Against Forest Service Travel Rule Rollback – 8.25.26  appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

Editor’s note: This article is part of a series exploring the various facets of the Sandhill Crane Migration in Central Nebraska, the $28 Million annual economic impact that the migration brings...

The comparatively modest maximum annual incentive of $200/kW over 10 years reflects the “private resilience value of residential energy storage systems,” state regulators said.

The programs have “historically not provided cost-effectiveness benefits to ratepayers and, indeed, show a decline in performance in recent years,” said the California Public Utilities Commission’s Public Advocates Office.

Each year, visitors from all over the world make plans to visit Central Nebraska for the magnificent Sandhill Crane migration.  Rowe Sanctuary is pleased to once again provide one of the best...

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.

Do wind turbines release more emissions than burning fossil fuels?

Wind turbines generate emissions during construction and transportation, but their overall climate impact is far lower than that of fossil fuels.

“Lifecycle emissions” is a measure of all emissions from raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, installation, operation, and disposal. A National Renewable Energy Laboratory review estimates that wind power produces about 13 grams of CO2-equivalent per kilowatt-hour over its full lifecycle. Natural gas averages about 486 grams, while coal is roughly 1,001 grams–or about 77 times wind’s emissions.

Most wind power emissions occur before turbines begin generating electricity, mainly from transporting components and to a lesser degree, manufacturing. Once operating, turbines generate electricity without directly burning fuel, allowing their low-emissions electricity to offset the emissions associated with their production and transportation.

Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact

This fact brief is responsive to quotes such as this one.

Sources

National Renewable Energy Laboratory Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Electricity Generation: Update

Yale Climate Connections What’s the carbon footprint of a wind turbine?

Industrial Ecology Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Utility-Scale Wind Power

Journal of Cleaner Production Life-cycle green-house gas emissions of onshore and offshore wind turbines

Columbia Law School Sabin Center for Climate Change Law Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles

Please use this form to provide feedback about this fact brief. This will help us to better gauge its impact and usability. Thank you!

About fact briefs published on Gigafact

Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer "yes/no" answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact — a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all of our published fact briefs here.

The loss of more than 3 GW of data center demand in Virginia shows why policy must address operational behavior, not just costs, writes AIxEnergy.io founder Brandon Owens.

The Trump administration has completely changed wildland firefighting on national public lands, an approach that is being put to the test as the Western U.S. is facing the worst fire season in years. A collaborative investigation by six publications across the West details the policy changes pushed through by the Trump administration, and the costly impacts those changes are having on the ground.

One of the most significant shifts is a return to a “full suppression” policy in which any fires, even those that are not human-caused, must be put out by 10:00 am the morning after they are discovered. The U.S. Forest Service originally adopted this policy nearly a century ago, but eventually abandoned it since it artificially suppressed naturally-occurring low-intensity fires that forests need, leaving behind unnatural amounts of vegetation that fuels catastrophic wildfires. The Trump administration also announced the creation of a new U.S. Wildland Fire Service, intended to consolidate firefighting crews and streamline communication.

But across the West, fire experts have expressed concern with the combination of major policy changes and significant staffing and funding cuts, especially as communities develop further into high fire-risk areas amid an ongoing drought. Seven people have already died fighting wildfires this year, with several weeks still remaining in the fire season.

Nevada sues Trump admin over Colorado River cuts

Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo announced that his state is challenging the Trump administration’s Colorado River two-year operating plan in court. Nevada’s lawsuit argues that the plan unfairly demands drastic cuts by Lower Basin states without imposing similar cuts on Upper Basin states, and asks the district court to block the plan.

Quick hits Trump admin plans to relax travel rules on national forests

Outdoor Life

Trump’s land grab is the latest chapter of Indigenous cultural genocide

Current Affairs

Trump’s border wall construction threatens rock art as old as the pyramids

Public Domain

Trump admin has spent billions boosting gas exports, spurring more fracking

Inside Climate News

Locals concerned as Trump admin fast-tracks public process for Wyoming rare earth mine

WyoFile

Planned copper mine in southern Arizona draws lawsuit over rare owls

Arizona Daily Star | Courthouse News Service

Canadian uranium firm says lack of outreach in northern New Mexico a ‘mistake’

Source New Mexico

Firefighters sound alarm as US faces critical staffing shortage: ‘We don’t have enough people’

Grist

Quote of the day

The Travel Management Rule is why dirt-bikers and snowmobilers can share national forest lands with hikers and backcountry skiers without conflict. It’s why our national forests provide habitat to support thriving wildlife populations. It is built on local decision-making, with a designation process that ensures that no user group gets steamrolled and all our national forest values are protected.”

—Hilary Eisen, Wild Montana, Outdoor Life

 

Picture This

@devilstowernps
We get a lot of questions asking about what it’s like up top. No, there’s not a massive hole in the middle, it’s actually pretty flat! It is said to be as big as a football field. You can even find small animals and snakes up there. Snakes are great climbers and are often found scaling the Tower, crawling through the cracks. Hawks, Falcons and other birds sometimes drop off their prey on top of the Tower too!
NPS Text/Lohma G. NPS Archives Photo. Featured image: A fuels reduction project on the Tahoe National Forest, U.S. Forest Service

The post How the Trump admin has upended wildland firefighting appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Germany is among the top three countries in Europe with the highest private jet flights per year1. The NGO ROBIN WOOD e.V. in Germany decided to do something about it. They’ve been working on a campaign for a ban of private jets at the airport in Hamburg. Private jets are one of the most climate-wrecking forms of transport2 and the number of flights increases every year. What exactly are the…

Source

Imagine the “perfect” bird nest.What comes to mind? Maybe leaves and fluff stuffed into a cozy little birdhouse or a tightly woven basket made of twigs and dried grass? Chances are that image in...