News Feeds

DENVER—As voters head to the polls across the Mountain West, one of the most prominent and bipartisan throughlines in 2026 is protecting America’s public lands and natural resources. Broadly, we have already seen public lands serve as a salient and decisive issue across elections, central to the identity of voters across the states highlighted. This report highlights recent data from multiple polling firms that surveyed Mountain West voters:

View the 2026 Winning the West polling guide here

Topline takeaways:

• For an overwhelming percentage of Mountain West voters, public lands rate incredibly positively, and are understood as valuable to the economy. Even in the context of other important issues like affordability, health care, and education, 86% of voters see issues involving public lands, waters, and wildlife as a motivating factor in supporting an elected public official across Mountain West states.
• Funding cuts, rollbacks of protections, and loss of natural areas rank as top concerns for voters across states.
• Selling off public lands is a third rail for Mountain West voters; majorities as high as 85% in one state (Montana) prefer to keep public lands in public hands.
• When given a direct choice, more than three voters to one favor protecting America’s natural resources and public lands rather than maximizing the land available for oil, gas drilling, and mining. This preference for protecting public lands is consistent across party lines, and concern over the impact of oil and gas drilling continues to steadily rise year over year.
• Across a variety of individual actions that give preferential treatment to oil, gas, and mining companies over national lands, over 70% of voters across Mountain West states opposed those actions.
• Regardless of party, Western voters demonstrate a clear preference and priority for renewable energy sources over fossil fuels, a pattern that has only increased over the past 14 years.

The post Public lands win elections: The Mountain West polling guide for the 2026 miderns appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

U.S. Attorney and top D.C. prosecutor Jeanine Pirro brought a box full of evidence to a meeting with President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum at the White House on Monday to prove that the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was caused by shoddy construction and not by vandals. Both Trump and Burgum had publicly rebuked Pirro for filing a motion last Friday to dismiss the felony case against Olympic canoeist David Hearn, who was accused of vandalizing the pool.

The motion blamed the Interior department for holding back critical evidence from prosecutors that they claimed they did not see until after they had secured the indictment for Hearn from the grand jury in D.C.’s Superior Court. The U.S. attorney’s office has also moved to dismiss criminal charges against three others accused of vandalizing the reflecting pool.

According to sources familiar with the Oval Office meeting on Monday, Pirro accused Doug Burgum of misleading Trump, making the case that Burgum had promoted a self-serving cover story to conceal his own missteps. Pirro said that her staff relied almost exclusively on claims by Interior department officials that extensive damage to the lining was caused by Hearn and other vandals who were observed tugging at or removing pieces of material from the wall. After reviewing thousands of pages of evidence, Pirro concluded the Interior department’s rushed timeline and “botched” renovation was responsible for the damage, and that bad information from Park Police officials had led her to cite “tremendous evidence” against Hearn that did not exist.

Center for Western Priorities Communications Director Kate Groetzinger writes in a new Westwise blog post about Burgum’s reflecting poll lies: “For six weeks, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told the country that vandals gutted the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. He said it on CNN. He said it on Fox. He said it was caught on camera and backed by eyewitnesses.” Groetzinger raises the question, if Burgum lied about the reflecting pool damage even after learning the truth, what other lies will he tell?

Quick hits Doug Burgum’s reflecting pool lies lead to an Oval Office showdown

New York Times | CBS News | USA Today

Energy developer backs off swapping solar farm for data center and gas plant

Heatmap

Diné woman fights for water rights and environmental justice on the Navajo Nation’s Black Mesa

Arizona Republic

Controversial mineral access deal takes Colorado oil and gas battle to a new level

Denver Post

Former park ranger says removing placard at Grand Teton visitor center about a massacre of Blackfeet people is censorship

Cowboy State Daily

The future of Wyoming’s federal coal reserves depends more on demand than availability

Cowboy State Daily

American Prairie files lawsuit to halt BLM bison grazing decision

Bozeman Daily Chronicle

U.S. Supreme Court sets date for blockbuster climate case

E&E News

Quote of the day

All of the blame for this waste of taxpayer funds and lying to the public about it falls at the feet of Secretary Burgum and President Trump. The career staff at the National Park Service are some of the most dedicated and committed public servants who work every day to preserve and protect our national parks. They don’t deserve the blame for this mess.”

—Emily Thompson, executive director of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, E&E News

Picture This

@usinterior

Six years ago today, the Great American Outdoors Act became law, making one of the largest investments in America’s public lands in a generation.

Today, those investments are restoring historic landmarks, rehabilitating iconic roads like Glacier National Park’s Going-to-the-Sun Road, improving trails, and expanding access for millions of visitors.

Get outside and celebrate the great outdoors.

Photos of Going-to-the-Sun Road by @glaciernps

Featured image: Doug Burgum appears on CNN on July 5; Credit: Aaron Rupar/X.

The post Doug Burgum’s reflecting pool lies lead to an Oval Office showdown appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

After three years of intense and divisive negotiations, the seven Colorado River Basin states failed to reach a long-term agreement, forcing the federal government to step in.

Federal water managers on Friday announced a new 10-year plan to manage the Colorado River that opens the door to unprecedented water supply cuts. Arizona, California, and Nevada, the three lower basin states, could face up to 3 million acre-feet in water cuts. The upper basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming will also have to conserve up to 200,000 acre-feet, or 65 billion gallons in the coming decade.

The plan released Friday by the Interior department marks the first time federal authorities have stepped in to determine the management for the waterway that supports 40 million people, 30 Tribes, and 5.5 million acres of farmland across the Southwest. The new management framework comes amid an ongoing crisis on the Colorado River due to drought and overuse of the river’s dwindling supplies. As of last Thursday, Lake Powell was 22 percent full and Lake Mead was 27 percent full. Scientists have warned that warmer temperatures and drier soils caused by climate change are shrinking the river’s flow, as are winters with significantly less mountain snowpack, the source of the vast majority of the river’s water.

Burgum doubles down on debunked Reflecting Pool ‘vandals’ claims

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro asked a judge to drop the Trump administration’s case against David Hearn, a former U.S. Olympian, whom it had accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The Department of Justice said Friday that flawed installation, not vandalism, caused the ‌liner of the newly renovated reflecting pool to peel. Despite the DOJ’s reversal, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum doubled down on blaming vandals, posting on X over the weekend, “The evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool.”

Pirro said that DOJ prosecutors had been misled by the Interior department, which had awarded a no-bid contract to a first-time government contractor to repair the iconic landmark. Pirro blamed both the government’s vendor and the administration’s timetable, saying the pool’s poor state “was the result of a flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration” on July 4.

Quick hits Federal government proposes steep cuts for Colorado River Basin states

Denver Post | PBS News | Colorado Sun | New York Times | The Hill | Reuters | Arizona Republic | The Guardian | Washington Post | KJZZ | CNN | Arizona Mirror | 8 News Now | Los Angeles Times

DOJ dismisses ‘vandalism’ charges while Doug Burgum doubles down on debunked claims

New York Times | The Hill | Associated Press | Advocate | Reuters | NOTUS | Wall Street Journal

National park ranger quits, tours visitor centers to fight censorship

SFGATE

More livestock grazing on public lands could spell trouble for ecosystem health

Sierra Magazine | St George News

Forest Service moves toward unrestricted motorized access in area used by iconic western elk herd

Outdoor Life

Utahns brave 100-degree heat to protest shrinking of national monuments

Fox13

Helicopter tried to pick up firefighters before deadly burn over in western Colorado

Denver Post

The conflict over permanent climbing anchors in wilderness areas

High Country News

Quote of the day

The last 20 years everybody has played this game which is, ‘Let’s wait on the hydrology and hope the hydrology bails us out,’ but that’s become a very dangerous game to play. If you have another crappy year like this year, you could be looking at 4 or 5 million acre-feet cuts, because the reservoirs would be completely empty.”

—Brad Udall, climate scientist at Colorado State University’s Colorado Water Center, Washington Post

Picture This

@usinterior

Come celebrate the First Peoples of Yellowstone with us. From August 2–8, join Voices of Yellowstone near the North Entrance in Gardiner, Montana, for a week honoring the Indigenous cultures woven into this land: past, present, and future.

There’s a lot to take part in. An opening ceremony with the lighting of the teepees, guided cultural tours across the park (registration required), a native art market, live music, speakers, and a community potluck.

Voices of Yellowstone is hosted by @ynpforever in partnership with Yellowstone National Park, alongside the Pretty Shield Foundation, @rockymountaintlc, and @visitgardinermt. We hope to see you there.

Photos by Jacob W. Frank / NPS

Featured image: Colorado River Basin map. Source: usgs.gov

The post Federal government proposes steep cuts for Colorado River water use appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Panel puts spotlight on Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, BLM Director Steve Pearce, and anti-park members of Congress

SANTA FE— Leaders from New Mexico advocacy groups and the Center for Western Priorities called on President Donald Trump, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and former New Mexico congressman and current Bureau of Land Management director Steve Pearce to stop attacking New Mexico’s parks and public lands.

At a live taping of The Landscape podcast, the Center for Western Priorities’ Keep Parks Public campaign highlighted the ongoing threats to American public lands, including the Trump administration’s aggressive attempts to lease public land for oil and gas drilling, funding cuts to national parks and public land management agencies, and efforts to cut the public and Tribes out of public land management.

“New Mexico’s public lands are being used as political pawns,” said Charlotte Overby, vice president of conservation field programs at the Conservation Lands Foundation. “The Trump administration is trying to strip protections from places like Chaco Canyon and national monuments through executive action, while Congress is mandating more lease sales and eliminating hard-fought, collaborative planning processes local people and the public worked hard to achieve. It’s not one attack, it’s a coordinated and systematic attempt to literally remove the public from public lands. Public lands belong to everyone, not to companies or a handful of wealthy individuals who seek to develop and profit off them.”

“Chaco is not a resource to be extracted, it is the origin of our Pueblo world, and this administration keeps treating it like an obstacle instead of a living homeland,” said Keegan King, executive director of the Native Land Institute. “First they came for the buffer zone. Now we’re watching the same pattern repeat across every corner of New Mexico’s public lands, monuments shrunk without our consent, tribal consultation reduced to a formality, decisions made in Washington before our governors ever get a seat at the table. The federal government has a trust responsibility to Tribal Nations, not a courtesy it extends when convenient. Every time these protections are stripped away, the cost isn’t just what’s drilled or logged, it’s the trust between our nations and this government, and that erosion doesn’t show up on anyone’s balance sheet.”

“Public lands are first and foremost ancestral lands of America’s Tribes. The larger threats we are seeing to public lands are threats to Tribal sovereignty, culture, identity, spirituality and subsistence,” said Andrew Black, director of Tribal lands and waters at the National Wildlife Federation. “Right now, energy dominance asks what can we extract from the land for the land is regarded as a commodity belonging to us. However, we must reverse this paradigm to see that we belong to the land as part of a larger interconnected community for what we do to the land, water, air, and wildlife we fundamentally do to ourselves. The challenge before us is not simply to preserve landscapes. It is to preserve right relationships —between people and the land, between generations, and ultimately between humanity and the larger web of life.”

“America’s public lands are under assault, and science itself is under siege. The very core of our national natural treasures and cultural sites and stories are being undermined through policy shifts, lack of public input, and staffing shortages,” said Elaine Leslie, executive council member with the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks. “Redefining what constitutes harm to species at-risk can only result in the demise of animals and their habitats already on the brink from impacts such as climate change, invasive species, resource extraction, and fragmentation. Our nation’s natural and cultural resources and history depend upon our collective voices to protect our public lands now and for generations to come.”

Audio, video, photos, and transcripts from today’s event and previous events will be available in the Keep Parks Public media archive.

The Keep Parks Public campaign is a project of the Center for Western Priorities, which is partnering with local conservation groups to elevate the voices of leading experts on threats to outdoor access, from budget cuts and funding freezes to attempts to sell off public lands entirely.

The Keep Parks Public tour kicked off in July 2025, making stops in Denver, Las Cruces, Tucson, Flagstaff, Moab, Salt Lake City, Grand Junction, and Jackson. This summer, we’re stopping in Santa Fe (7/30), Tucson (8/28), and more locations around the West.

The public is invited to share their thoughts and join the campaign to Keep Parks Public and stop the attacks on America’s public lands.

Top threats to New Mexico’s Public Lands

1. The Chaco Canyon buffer rollback
   The Bureau of Land Management is moving to gut the 10-mile protective buffer around Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site sacred to more than 20 Pueblo tribes, implemented under the Biden administration. The Trump administration wants to eliminate the buffer as part of its “Unleashing American Energy” agenda, even though 90% of the surrounding terrain is already leased. BLM’s current proposal offers three options: eliminate the buffer entirely, cut it in half, or leave it intact. The public comment deadline just passed on July 29.Sen. Martin Heinrich and the rest of New Mexico’s congressional delegation have introduced a permanent fix to protect the region and its cultural sites: the Chaco Cultural Heritage Area Protection Act, which would permanently bar new oil and gas leasing on federal lands within 10 miles of Chaco Culture National Historical Park, closing the door the administration is now trying to force back open. It’s currently stalled in Congress, but it’s the only proposal on the table that would take the buffer zone question out of the hands of whoever occupies the White House.
2. Monuments in the crosshairs
   Mark Allison with New Mexico Wild warns that Trump’s decision to reduce Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah could put Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, Rio Grande del Norte, and Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks national monuments at risk. Leaked Interior Department documents have listed those three New Mexico monuments as potential targets for reductions, with Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks specifically named as one of six sites under consideration.
3. Wildland firefighting reorganization
   The administration recently stood up a new U.S. Wildland Fire Service, consolidating firefighting away from individual Interior bureaus, including the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service, and into one central office, over bipartisan congressional objections. Meanwhile, the Forest Service has already lost about 5,900 people, roughly 16% of its staff, through early retirements, resignations, and buyouts, with proposed 2026 staffing cuts of 30% or more on top of that.
4. Park staffing: a mixed but still bad picture
   DOGE’s “Fork in the Road” email pushed roughly 2,400 NPS employees into early retirement or resignation in January 2025, about 12 percent of the workforce, and then Interior fired around 1,000 more NPS employees that February in what staff called the “Valentine’s Day Massacre.” Total NPS staff losses since then are estimated at 25 percent. Rep. Gabe Vasquez has said staffing at Carlsbad Caverns specifically has declined 20 percent, leaving the park unable to run regular visitation hours or after-school programs. That October, both Carlsbad Caverns and White Sands closed entirely during the 35-day-adjacent federal shutdown, with Rep. Vasquez warning “we’re going to see minimal staffing across our public land system.”

   This June, Vasquez sent Interior Secretary Burgum a letter demanding an explanation for why roughly $90 million in NPS entrance fee revenue, money meant for repairs at parks like White Sands and Carlsbad Caverns, was instead redirected to beautification projects in Washington, D.C., during peak summer visitor season.

5. Congress eyeing public land sales
   Sen. Mike Lee proposed striking a provision requiring Interior to maintain ownership of all existing National Park Service units, which would open the door to selling park land, in a state home to Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands, Bandelier, Chaco Canyon, and Valles Caldera. An earlier version of the reconciliation bill would have greenlit selling off roughly 1.23 million acres of public land, and even after that language was stripped, the bill still clawed back $267 million in committed park staffing funds.
6. Rolling back drilling accountability
   BLM is proposing to slash lease bond minimums to 1950s and ’60s levels, cutting statewide bonds from $500,000 to $25,000 regardless of how many wells they cover, while eliminating methane waste minimization plans and leak detection and repair requirements. This directly undercuts rules credited with keeping New Mexico’s methane intensity in the Permian Basin at less than half of Texas’s, and threatens to stick taxpayers with a massive orphan well clean up bill.
7. Expanded oil and gas leasing across the Permian and San Juan basins
   Since the “One Big Beautiful Bill” took effect on July 4, 2025, BLM has leased roughly 61,400 acres of federal land in New Mexico across three completed quarterly sales: 7,501.76 acres in July 2025 for $58.26 million, 20,399 acres in January 2026 for $326.8 million (nearly all in New Mexico, with a single Oklahoma parcel), and 33,530 acres in May 2026 that brought in just over $4 billion, the largest lease sale total in BLM history.

   More is coming. BLM has scheduled an August 19, 2026 sale offering 26 parcels totaling 20,334 acres across New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, and has opened comment on a proposed November 2026 sale covering 30 more parcels totaling 8,071 acres in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas. If the August sale goes through as planned, it would push the total leased in New Mexico since OBBBA past 80,000 acres in just over a year.

8. Weakening the Endangered Species Act
   The administration has proposed rolling back Endangered Species Act regulations that would severely limit how much critical habitat can be designated for species headed toward extinction, alarming conservationists about the Mexican gray wolf’s future. A related change opens New Mexico’s forests to logging and mining by loosening wildlife habitat protections.
9. Push to delist the Mexican gray wolf
   The House Natural Resources Committee has advanced the Enhancing Safety for Animals Act with bipartisan support, which would strip federal ESA protections from the Mexican wolf entirely. Separately, federal and state agencies are preparing to downlist the wolf from endangered to threatened, even as at least 23 wolves have been documented in trapping incidents across New Mexico since 2022.
10. Budget: parks got a reprieve for FY2026, but FY2027 is a fresh fight
    The FY2026 appropriations law, enacted January 23, 2026, gave NPS $3.267 billion, 54 percent more than what the administration had requested. That blocked what would have been a $900 million, 31 percent operations cut and the elimination of funding for roughly 350 park sites.

    The administration’s FY2027 budget proposal, released in April, seeks to slash $736 million from park operations and would shrink the NPS workforce from about 16,000 to roughly 13,000. Sen. Heinrich called it proof “this administration is not committed to keeping the Park Service intact” and warned it would gut the regional scientists, archaeologists, and historians parks rely on even if front-line ranger jobs are nominally spared. That budget fight will play out in Congress this fall.

Since 2012, the Center for Western Priorities (CWP) has been a leading source of accurate information about energy and public lands across the West. CWP advocates for responsible uses of American lands, including recreation, conservation, and renewable energy.

The Conservation Lands Foundation (CLF) is a national non-profit headquartered in Durango, Colorado, dedicated to protecting, restoring, and expanding National Conservation Lands.

 

The post New Mexico conservation leaders denounce attacks on national public lands, join campaign to Keep Parks Public appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Developers are asking Pittsburgh City Council to vote on another major tax giveaway scheme – giving up to $200 million dollars to a handful of Downtown private real estate companies, without any requirements around public benefit. This vote to implement the Downtown Transit Revitalization Improvement District (TRID) will divert tax revenue from the Strip District, Downtown and the North Shore for the next 40 (!) years into the coffers of private corporations.

Right now, when working people and our public agencies are struggling to make ends meet, Pittsburgh City Council is being asked (via the Urban Redevelopment Authority) to hand the Golden Triangle yet another golden ticket.

Take Action: Tell Council to fund neighborhoods, not developers What is the TRID proposal?

A TRID is a type of legislation intended to fund transit improvements—but this one won’t do that. Instead, here’s how this proposal would work: 

• The City (i.e., taxpayers) would initially borrow $50 million to invest exclusively in the TRID area: the Strip District, parts of the North Shore, and Downtown. This money would effectively be a grant paid to wealthy developers, with the City gambling on future tax revenue to pay down the debt.
  • Many Downtown developers are concurrently challenging their commercial property assessments, so that they could pay lower taxes in the future.
    
• Only 20% of this money would be invested in public infrastructure—but they’ve not named any particular public projects that would benefit. By contrast, the remaining 80% has been earmarked for specific, private, for-profit real estate developers.
  
• All future public tax dollars from Downtown, the Strip District, and the North Shore for the next 40 years would be diverted to a “Golden Triangle Reinvestment Fund”, exclusively financing development in a small pocket of Downtown. This fund would be controlled by the non-elected Urban Redevelopment Agency (URA)—not City Council, a public body that is accountable to the public.

Members of Pittsburgh City Council and the Mayor’s administration have said that we are facing a massive City budget crisis. So why are they fast-tracking a $200 million handout to Downtown developers, with almost no public process? 

What’s at stake

We have already given almost a billion dollars to Downtown developers in tax breaks over the past 5 years. Enough is enough. 

Our communities deserve so much more: public transit infrastructure, affordable housing, local food initiatives, street and sidewalk repairs, childcare programs and more. These are critical investments for the well-being of our City—and we cannot fund them if our City Councilmembers signs away millions in tax dollars to private developers for the next four decades.

Transit riders must tell our elected officials to vote NO on implementing the Downtown Transit Revitalization Investment District (TRID). Public dollars – whether borrowed or generated from tax revenue – should be invested across all communities – from Fairywood to Fineview, Brookline to Bloomfield. Our resources should be allocated through the annual City budgeting process, with robust public input to ensure that our tax resources are distributed equitably and address the needs of the moment.

We say: no more handouts to Downtown corporations until our neighborhoods, our small businesses, our workers and our students are given their fair share!

Take Action Now

After you send a letter, CALL your City Councilmember to urge them to vote NO (find your councilmember here):

• District 1 (Northside, Strip District, Parts of Downtown):
  Bobby Wilson (412) 255-2135
• District 2 (West End, Sheraden, Elliott, Banksville):
  Kim Salinetro (412) 255-8963
• District 3 (Oakland, Southside, Arlington, Allentown):
  Bob Charland (412) 255-2130
• District 4 (Beechview, Brookline, Carrick, Overbrook):
  Anthony Coghill (412) 255-2131
• District 5 (Greenfield, Hazelwood, Lincoln Pl, Swisshelm Park):
  Barb Warwick (412) 255-8965
• District 6 (Manchester, Downtown, The Hill, Uptown, Perry Hilltop):
  Danielle Lavelle (412) 255-2134
• District 7 (Bloomfield, Lawrenceville, Polish Hill, Stanton Heights) :
  Deb Gross (412) 255-2140
• District 8 (Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Oakland):
  Erika Strassburger (412) 255-2133
• District 9 (East Liberty, Larimer, Homewood, Garfield):
  Khari Mosley (412) 255-2137

The post ACTION ALERT: Pittsburgh City Council Considers New Slush Fund for Downtown Developers—on our Dime appeared first on Pittsburghers for Public Transit.

Soy madre y miembro de la comunidad latina que lucha con PPT por un sistema de transporte que realmente sirva a todos. ¿Te unirás a mí haciéndote miembro que paga cuotas?

Me llamo Evelyn Ulysse Alcántara. Uso el transporte público a diario para ir al trabajo, al médico,  actividades de ocio,  reuniones, llevar a mi hijo al colegio— para todo. 

Soy latina y mi inglés no es perfecto, así que cuando me mudé a Pittsburgh me costó usar el transporte público porque había muy poca información disponible en español. Por eso me ofrecí de voluntaria para ayudar como embajadora en los Recorridos de tránsito de PPT. Fue muy frustrante y aislante  intentar aprender a usar el sistema de transporte público por mi cuenta. Sabía que si podía hacer algo para apoyar el aprendizaje de mi comunidad, ¡tenía que hacerlo!   

Ser miembro de PPT no solo ha mejorado mis propias necesidades de transporte. Me abrió la puerta para ayudarme a marcar la diferencia.

Cuando hubo recortes en el transporte público en Beechview, hubo ocasiones en que el autobús o el Tren no venían—y no sabía la razón, porque los cambios sólo se comunicaban en inglés. Pero hoy, si vas a Steel Plaza o Wood Street Station, ¡escucharás anuncios en español! Y hay instrucciones paso a paso en español en la web de PRT. Esto se debe a que PPT y Casa San José se unieron para dar voz a mi comunidad, para que PRT pudiera entender el verdadero impacto que esto estaba teniendo en nosotros.

Este es el verdadero poder de PPT: realmente escuchan a la gente.

Cuando descubrí que PPT, me pedían testimonios sobre el papel que tiene el transporte público en la vida de las personas, para mostrar lo importante que sería un programa de media tarifa. Sabía que tenía que dar mi testimonio, porque necesitábamos actuar para mejorar el acceso. En aquel entonces solo era una idea y un proyecto, pero hoy es una realidad que lleva el servicio de transporte a la gente.

Me encanta el PPT porque sé de primera mano lo que podemos lograr juntos.  

Solo en 2026:

• Llevamos a 120 miembros a Harrisburg para arrojar luz sobre la brecha presupuestaria de 80 millones de dólares y enfatizar la importancia de los servicios para tránsito y viajes compartidos para nuestros representantes.  
• Compartimos habilidades y construimos poder con 170 personas de todo el país, compartimos habilidades y construyeron poder en nuestro Entrenamiento de Primavera 2026. 
• Formamos a 13 becarios de organización comunitaria en toda la colina del barrio de PGH, y las regiones de Lancaster y Lehigh Valley en Pensilvania. 

Por eso quería preguntar: ¿apoyarán el trabajo urgente de PPT haciéndote miembro que paga cuotas hoy?

Puedes apuntarte por solo 2,75 $, ¡el precio actual del billete de autobús del PRT! Ese dinero va directamente a la defensa de un presupuesto de transporte que mueve a TODOS los habitantes de Pensilvania. Todo el mundo merece acceso al transporte público.

¿Nos ayudarás a hacer realidad ese sueño?

The post Transporte Público para la Gente: Únete a la campaña de Socios 2026 appeared first on Pittsburghers for Public Transit.

Image Description: Evelyn Ulysse Alcantara, a dark-skinned woman in a red PPT shirt, smiles in front of a collaged picture of Pittsburgh

I’m a mother and member of the Latino community fighting with PPT for a transit system that truly serves everyone. Will you join me by becoming a dues-paying member? Donate to become a PPT member!

My name is Evelyn Ulysse Alcantara. I use public transportation daily for going to work, the doctor, leisure activities, meetings, bringing my son to school—everything.

I’m Latina and my English isn’t perfect, so when I first moved to Pittsburgh I struggled to use public transportation because there was so little information available in Spanish. This is why I volunteered to help be an ambassador for PPT’s Transit Tours. It was so frustrating and isolating to try and learn how to use the system by myself. I knew that if I could do something to support my community’s learning, I had to do it!  

Being a PPT member hasn’t just improved my own transit needs. It opened the door to help me make a difference. 

When there were cuts to transit in Beechview, there were times the bus or T didn’t come—and I didn’t know why because the changes were only communicated in English. But today, if you go to Steel Plaza or Wood Street Station, you’ll hear announcements in Spanish! And there are step by step instructions in Spanish on PRT’s website. This is because PPT and Casa San Jose came together to uplift my community’s voice, so that PRT could understand the true impact this was having on us. 

This is PPT’s real power: they truly listen to the people. 

When I first found out about PPT, they were asking for testimonies about the role transit has in people’s lives, to show how important a half-fare program would be. I knew I had to give my testimony, because we needed to take action to improve access. Back then it was just an idea, but today it’s a reality that brings transit service to the people!

I love PPT because I know firsthand what we can accomplish together. 

In 2026 alone, we have: 

• We brought 120 members to Harrisburg to shed light on the $80 million dollar transit budget gap, and emphasise the importance of paratransit and shared ride services to our representatives.  
• We trained 13 community organizing fellows across the Hilltop neighborhood of PGH, and the Lancaster and Lehigh Valley regions of PA. 
• Shared skills and built power with 170 people from across the country at our 2026 Spring Training.

That’s why I wanted to ask: will you support PPT’s urgent work by becoming a dues-paying member today?

You can join for just $2.75—the current cost of a PRT bus fare! That money goes directly towards advocacy for a transit budget that moves ALL Pennsylvanians. Everyone deserves access to public transportation. Will you help us make that dream a reality?

Donate now to join Evelyn as a member—and build transit for the people!

The post Transit for the People: Join the 2026 Member Drive appeared first on Pittsburghers for Public Transit.

In January Congress passed a “minibus” bill that raided $500 million in previously appropriated coal mine cleanup funds to pay for other federal programs. We’re now seeing the first results of that bill: $45.5 million less in mine cleanup funding every year for the next 11 years. Combined with growing inflation, this means fewer jobs will be supported cleaning up mines and more hazardous coal mining damage won’t be reclaimed in Appalachia and across the country.

When it passed in 2021, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided about $10.9 billion for the reclamation of Abandoned Mine Land (AML) sites across the country in fifteen annual grants to states and tribes. The first four years’ worth of grants were awarded between 2022-2025. The minibus bill cuts $500 million from the total AML funding provided under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – but it was unclear at the time of passage if the $500 million would be cut entirely from the last (fifteenth) year of AML grants or equally across the remaining 11 years worth of annual funding. Now we have our answer.

The 2026 AML grants for states and tribes were announced in May and the cuts are here. According to the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, the $500 million cut “will be applied equally to the remaining 11 grant distribution years, approximately $45.45 million per year.” The figure below shows the annual reduction in funds for each state and tribe, as well as the total cuts that will play out over the next 11 years. Pennsylvania and West Virginia have the largest cuts (by absolute value), at about $15 million and $9 million per year, respectively.

(function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})();

The cuts are reducing the amount of damage states and tribes can reclaim. Inflation – especially recent rises in fuel costs that can drive up the cost of operating construction equipment – is also lowering the spending power of reclamation dollars even from last year, further reducing the amount of reclamation states and tribes can accomplish in 2026.

States and tribes have a five-year window to spend their FY2026 AML grant, and those agencies will now begin planning for fewer dollars by taking steps like selecting fewer reclamation projects or reducing the scope of projects. In Pennsylvania, for example, the cuts are equivalent to the cost of two large abandoned mine drainage treatment systems.

As we explained in a previous post, the extent of AML damage that needs to be cleaned up is likely twice as large as the existing $10.9 billion in funding– even before $500 million was cut.

This is damage to land and water that has lingered since at least the 1970s, and now residents will have to wait even longer for cleanup. If this cut hadn’t occurred, $45 million per year in more mine cleanup would be put to use across the country in the next few years, removing hazards to the local population and supporting more jobs, such as in construction, doing reclamation work primarily in rural areas. Congress should reverse the $500 million reduction, and should protect the program from similar cuts in the future.

The post Breaking down how much Congress cut AML funds by state appeared first on Ohio River Valley Institute.

June 6, 2026

Read new San Francisco Gate story:

“US Navy finds radiological material in unauthorized storage in San Francisco”

June 2026:

Bayview Hunters Point Community Call to Action and Demands issued by Greenaction and the Marie Harrison Community Foundation, Inc.

June 24th noon rally at San Francisco City Hall to support community demands for health, justice, and full cleanup of all contamination at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Superfund Site.

June 24, 2026 Call to Action for Bayview Hunters Point

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 4, 2026

Statement on ACT NOW Clean Tech Initiative

ALLEGHENY COUNTY, Pa. — On June 4, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato signed the Advancing Clean Technology for Neighborhood and Next-Generation Opportunity and Workforce (ACT NOW) Executive Order. In response, Ohio River Valley Institute Industrial Decarbonization Program Manager Justine Hackimer issued the following statement:

Clean technology and advanced manufacturing present a generational opportunity to strengthen Allegheny County’s economy, create high-quality jobs, and build on our region’s long history of industrial innovation. 

For generations, southwestern Pennsylvania’s workers, manufacturers, and research institutions helped power economic growth across the country. As global markets increasingly demand cleaner technologies, our region is well-positioned to compete for the industries that will shape the next generation of manufacturing. 

But realizing that opportunity requires more than individual projects. It takes coordination and smart policy like ACT NOW to ensure workers and local communities directly benefit from investments. We applaud County Executive Sara Innamorato’s leadership in shaping a clean tech future that works for all Pennsylvanians.

By investing in the industries of tomorrow while strengthening the systems that support workers and communities, the region can build a more diverse, resilient economy that creates opportunities for generations to come.

###

 

The post Statement on ACT NOW Clean Tech Initiative appeared first on Ohio River Valley Institute.

Price floors and supply management programs seem common sense to policymakers when it comes to oil and minerals, but what about US farmers and our overall food system? By: Patti Naylor, FFD president, George Naylor, FFD board member, and Laurel … Continue reading →

By Vanessa Mascia Turri

Naples became one of Europe’s most ambitious experiments in democratic water governance after Italy’s 2011 referendum against water privatisation. Yet bringing water back into public hands did not necessarily redistribute power over how water itself would be governed.

In 2011, after the Italian referendum against water privatisation, Naples became one of the most ambitious experiments in remunicipalised water governance in Europe. The city transformed its water utility into ABC Napoli (Acqua Bene Comune Napoli), a publicly owned entity presented not simply as a return to public management, but as an attempt to implement the “democracy of the commons” theorised by the Italian Forum of Water Movements.

Within this perspective, water was understood not only as a public service, but as a common good whose governance should involve the direct participation of citizens and social movements.

Over the following decade, Naples became a testing ground for a broader political question that has emerged across many remunicipalisation struggles: what happens when the language and practices of the commons enter public institutions? The Neapolitan experience shows that bringing water back into public hands does not automatically democratise its governance. Instead, participation became continuously negotiated and reshaped through political conflict, financial pressures and struggles over who should control public resources.

From water struggles to the democracy of the commons

Since the early 2000s, struggles against water privatisation have connected local mobilisations to broader debates around the commons. Struggles against water privatisation in Europe have often gone beyond opposition to market reforms and increasingly connected demands for public ownership with broader claims around the commons and direct democracy, as explored throughout the Reimagining, remembering and reclaiming water series. In many countries, water movements have challenged not only privatisation, but also the idea that essential services should be governed through technocratic and top-down forms of management, increasingly linking water struggles to broader claims around the commons and direct democracy, as discussed in Transforming capitalism? The role of the commons and direct democracy in struggles against water privatisation in Europe.

In Italy, these debates converged in the Italian Forum of Water Movements, one of the broadest water movements in Europe. As broader discussions around the commons in Italy have shown, these debates extended well beyond water itself and raised wider questions about collective resources, democracy and institutional change. Under the slogan “si scrive acqua, si legge democrazia” (“it is written water, it is read democracy”), the movement argued that remunicipalisation should involve not only public ownership, but also direct civic participation in water governance.

Naples became the most ambitious attempt to translate this political vision into institutional practice.

 

Poster from the 2011 Italian referendum campaign against water privatization reading “Water is not for sale.” Image courtesy of the Forum Italiano dei Movimenti per l’Acqua.

Naples became the most ambitious attempt to translate this political vision into institutional practice.

Yet public and academic debates on remunicipalisation have often focused on privatisation conflicts and legal transitions, paying far less attention to what happens afterwards. How are participatory mechanisms actually organised inside remunicipalised utilities? How much power are institutions willing to share with social movements and citizens once remunicipalisation has taken place?

My article From theory to practice: evaluating civic participation in Naples’ remunicipalised water service examines these questions through the case of ABC Napoli, reconstructing how participation was progressively organised, contested and reshaped during the decade following remunicipalisation.

Participation and the limits of the commons

At the moment of remunicipalisation, Naples faced deteriorated infrastructures, chronic underinvestment and a massive municipal public debt. For many activists of the Neapolitan water movement, remunicipalisation was therefore not only about public ownership, but also about transforming the priorities of water governance through ecological restoration, infrastructural investment and more equitable access to water.

Over the following decade, ABC Napoli experimented with different forms of civic participation. Initially, the municipal government opened the board of directors to representatives linked to the Italian Forum of Water Movements and to environmental associations. Yet local activists who had led the mobilisation against privatisation were largely excluded from these arrangements, generating immediate tensions over who had the legitimacy to participate in the governance of the utility.

The most ambitious participatory experiment emerged with the creation of the Civic Council, a public assembly open to citizens, activists and ABC workers. Meetings were held directly inside the company and addressed issues such as tariffs, infrastructure maintenance, hiring policies and investment priorities. Delegates from the assemblies also participated in discussions with the board of directors, creating one of the most advanced attempts in Europe to institutionalise direct civic participation inside a remunicipalised water utility.

However, participation became far more conflictual once these assemblies started intervening in concrete political and economic questions. Members of the Civic Council promoted long-term infrastructural investments and the recruitment of specialised personnel while defending the financial stability of the utility. According to several interviewees, these priorities increasingly clashed with those of the municipal government, which was more focused on short-term employment policies and the management of public-sector jobs within a broader context marked by debt, unemployment and political pressures surrounding public employment.

These tensions ultimately led to the removal of the board of directors and to the progressive weakening of participatory governance. In the following years, participation increasingly shifted towards weak consultative mechanisms with limited influence over decision-making processes. Many activists gradually distanced themselves from the experiment, while severe financial constraints continued to limit investments in infrastructures and ecological renewal.

Rather than evolving towards deeper forms of democratic governance, the Neapolitan experience progressively revealed the difficulties of institutionalising the “democracy of the commons” within existing municipal structures and political priorities.

Remunicipalisation without democratisation?

Poster from the Italian public water movement following the 2011 referendum campaign, emphasising water as a public right rather than a source of profit. Image courtesy of the Forum Italiano dei Movimenti per l’Acqua.

The experience of ABC Napoli complicates many celebratory narratives surrounding remunicipalisation. Bringing water back into public hands did not automatically redistribute power inside public governance. On the contrary, the Neapolitan case shows how quickly the language of the commons can become absorbed into existing institutional structures once participation starts challenging concrete political and economic interests.

The weakening of participatory governance inside ABC Napoli did not result from a lack of civic mobilisation or technical expertise. Quite the opposite: activists involved in the water movement developed increasingly detailed proposals on tariffs, infrastructures and long-term investments, becoming capable of intervening directly in the governance of the utility. Participation became problematic precisely when it stopped being symbolic and started questioning how public resources, infrastructures and employment should be managed.

In Naples, these tensions unfolded within a broader context marked by public debt, deteriorated infrastructures, unemployment and long-standing systems of political mediation surrounding public-sector employment. Under these conditions, the “democracy of the commons” increasingly collided with the political and administrative logics shaping municipal governance.

More broadly, the Neapolitan experience suggests that remunicipalisation alone cannot democratise essential services without a real willingness from public institutions to share decision-making power. Commons become politically difficult when they move beyond participation as consultation and start demanding participation as co-governance.

Rather than offering a linear model of democratic transformation, Naples reveals the unresolved tensions that emerge when social movements attempt to institutionalise the commons inside existing state structures. The question, then, is not simply whether remunicipalisation is possible, but whether public institutions are truly willing to democratise the power through which public resources are governed.

—

Featured image: Protest sign reading “Public water, public management. Clear?” during a demonstration of the Italian water movement. Photo courtesy of the Forum Italiano dei Movimenti per l’Acqua (acquabenecomune.org).

The post From remunicipalisation to the democracy of the commons appeared first on Undisciplined Environments.

Russian-Speaking Leftists, a group based in Germany, on 19 May published this interview with a socialist activist living in Russia who, they write, “stands for revolutionary defeatism”.[1] I translated it and added the footnotes. SP. Download this article as a PDF Q: Please tell us a little about yourself. A: I am a communist. I […]

This factsheet shows that Ontario can easily accommodate enough solar and wind installations to meet the projected provincial demand for electricity in 2050.  These options will be lower cost and faster to deploy than new nuclear. Read the factsheet

The post Does Ontario Need New Nuclear to Keep its Lights on in 2050? appeared first on Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

This post is based on a talk I gave at the Ecosocialism conference in London on Saturday 30 May, about the Fare Free London campaign, in which I participate, and the wider movements of which it is part. I was on a panel on “Organising the climate movement” with Tyrone Scott of War on Want […]

Check out “Censored News” coverage of May 16

Protest in Utah against Energy Fuels uranium mines and mill

“CENSORED NEWS: Shut Down Energy Fuels — Uranium Mining and Radioactive Dumping on Native People”

 

Backbone Intern Giacomo Moody's Story Map for We the People is now LIVE!.

The Story Map traces the journey of this Iconic image, from its 2007 debut at Seattle Center to its current deployments in pro-democracy protests around the country. Check out Giacomo's great work and the amazing fruits of our collective labors.

Learn more about joining us in DC or pitching in to support our team going to Washington, DC to mark the 250th Birthday of this country. We'll once again take the streets in a defiant and beautiful expression of common cause and our shared commitment to fulfilling mission of creating a more just, sustainable, and democratic nation, and a future we can be proud to hand our children.

Check out the We the People Story Map at BackboneCampaign.org/WeThePeople.

 

 

We the People featured at NW Folklife Festival this weekend!

Two copies will be at Seattle Center this weekend at the NW Folklife Festival, one at the Mural Amphitheater Stage, near the Space Needle and another in the International Fountain Pavilion, with pens for signing. Use this chance to add your signature in time for it to be taken to DC this July 4th!

Over the last 19 years, Backbone's giant We the People banner has served as an icon of people power and our aspirations to fulfill the shared mission of creating a more perfect union. Adding two more Preamble sections has allowed it to appear in even more cities in the past year, collecting signatures and grabbing the attention of the press and public as a symbol of resistance and resilience.

In April 2026, the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais gutted a core protection of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — the provision barring racial gerrymandering designed to dilutes the voting power of Black communities. The Trump administration called it a victory. For communities on the frontlines of pollution, climate change, and environmental injustice, it is one most deliberate act of erasure and as Dr. Beverly Wright of Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (DSCEJ) says, it is a “theft of our movement’s inheritance”.

This ruling did not arrive alone. It is part of a coordinated, multi-front strategy to remove impacted communities — particularly Black communities — from the rooms where decisions get made. Through the courts, through Executive Orders seizing control of elections, through the SAVE Act’s documentation barriers that would block more than 21 million Americans from voting, through a Department of Justice that has sued all 50 states to build a national voter surveillance database, and through the threat of criminal prosecution against election officials and civic organizations.

This administration’s goal is not election integrity. The goal is the permanent political marginalization of Black communities, Indigenous communities and communities of color.

The pattern is unmistakable when you see it whole. The Supreme Court’s ruling applies not just to Congressional districts, but also to state legislative districts and maps for county and municipal elections — determining who gets to serve on a school board, a city council, or in the judiciary. 

Meanwhile, the administration has turned the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department into an agency that violates the very definition of civil rights, redirecting it toward suppressing voting rather than protecting voting rights. 

At the same time, another assault on voting rights is being advanced through Congress. If signed into law, the SAVE Act would require every American to produce a passport or certified birth certificate, in person, at an election office just to register to vote, eliminating online registration, mail registration, and most voter registration drives. For Black communities, this lands on a foundation of deliberate historical denial: many older Black Americans were never issued birth certificates by governments that refused to recognize their full humanity. 

For Indigenous communities, the SAVE Act’s promise that Tribal IDs will suffice is a fiction, ignoring the fact that virtually no Tribal ID includes place of birth, another barrier buried in the bill’s text. And even with documents in hand, the nearest election office can be a hundred miles away across reservation land, or in Alaska, accessible only by plane. 

These are not bureaucratic inconveniences; they are systemic barriers deeply rooted in this country’s history of racial segregation. They reflect the architecture of laws written around people who were never meant to be politically represented and applied to communities still fighting to be counted.

The same communities facing barriers to their rights to vote are bearing the greatest burden of air pollution, toxic contamination, extreme heat, and climate disasters. And the fact that these communities are overwhelmingly Black, Brown, Indigenous, and low-income, and this is not a coincidence. It is the predictable result of political exclusion and the enduring legacy of segregation. 

When communities cannot elect representatives who share their priorities, when their votes are diluted through racial gerrymandering, the outcome is a petrochemical plant permitted next to an elementary school, a neighborhood left without clean water, or a community absorbing the full cost of an energy system it had no power to refuse. 

A political system that makes voting harder perpetuates the very conditions that make environmental justice necessary.

This is also why the assault extends beyond the ballot. The same administration that is dismantling voting rights protections is also terrorizing immigrant communities — deportation threats, surveillance, and the weaponization of documentation status as a tool of political control. 

What this administration is attacking, in every instance, is the fundamental democratic principle that the people most affected have a rightful voice in decision-making. 

That principle does not begin and end at the voting booth. It lives in every planning meeting, every regulatory comment period, every public hearing, every coalition room where communities are fighting for their lives and their land. Undocumented neighbors, visa holders, green card holders, people who live and work and raise children in the same fenceline communities, who breathe the same air and drink the same water, carry knowledge and moral authority that no policy process can afford to exclude. 

Voting is an essential mechanism through which communities exercise the most direct form of political power available to our communities, and its protection is non-negotiable. The fight for voting rights and the fight for full community participation are intrinsically linked because they are being waged against us by the same forces, for the same purpose: to ensure that the communities with the most at stake in our climate and environmental future have the least say in shaping it.

 Our communities continue to show up, no matter the barriers put in our way: voters and non-voters, citizens and non-citizens, people who cast ballots, people who testify, and people who organize. No matter the injustices we face, environmental justice leaders know that our solidarity is unstoppable and our resolve to fight for true representation will never be broken by any court or politician.

Byron Ramos Gudiel is Executive Director of the Center for Earth, Energy & Democracy (CEED).

Sources:

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/save-act-and-election-power-grab

https://www.vote.org/save-act/

https://narf.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/narf-save-act-native-voters.pdf

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/environmental-justice-requires-a-healthy-democracy

https://www.aclu.org/trump-on-voting-rights

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-gerrymandering-tilts-2024-race-house

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/we-arent-paying-enough-attention-to-what-the-scotus-vra-decision-means-for-state-legislatures

https://abcnews.com/Politics/congressional-black-caucus-lose-seats-amid-redistricting-fight/story?id=132965013

LCV – https://www.lcv.org/media-center/lcv-statement-on-scotus-decision-in-louisiana-v-callais/

Not NRDC Action Fund: https://www.nrdcactionfund.org/news/scotus-voting-rights-act-decision-hurts-our-democracy-and-the-court-itself/

Sierra Club: https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2026/04/sierra-club-statement-supreme-court-ruling-gut-voting-rights-act

CAP: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-supreme-courts-callais-decisions-undermine-the-voting-rights-act-and-sow-election-chaos/

WE ACT: https://weact.org/updates/in-response-to-regressive-voting-rights-act-supreme-court-decision-we-act-committed-to-fighting-for-our-democracy/

The post How the Gutting of the Voting Rights Act Deepens Environmental Injustice appeared first on CEED.