In response to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s decision to prohibit new federal oil and gas leasing within 10 miles of the Chaco Culture National Historical Park, members of the Greater Chaco Coalition called on the Biden administration to end all new federal fossil fuel leasing across the country. The coalition also called on the administration to do more to live up to its promises to develop a landscape-level approach for resource management in the Greater Chaco region and address the climate crisis ...
Advocates Demand “Phasing Out Fossil Fuels” As Part of Proposed BLM Public Lands Rule
As the Bureau of Land Management holds its second of three in-person public meetings to promote the Department of Interior’s proposed Public Lands Rule, New Mexicans rallied in front of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque to unfurl a 20-foot banner reading “Phase Out Federal Fossil Fuels: Biden Keep Your Promise on Public Lands and Waters” highlighting the mounting demands to address the legacy of fossil fuel sacrifice zones in New Mexico as a result of the continued fossil fuel leasing and drilling across public and ancestral tribal lands ...
Advocates Deliver Message to BLM to Cancel Lease Sale
On May 24, advocates delivered a letter signed by over 200 local and national groups, businesses, unions, and institutions to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Rio Puerco Field office in Albuquerque urging the agency to phase out oil and gas leasing ...
Greater Chaco Coalition provides a guide for initiative to truly "Honor Chaco"
The Greater Chaco Coalition shared recommendations on how the Department of Interior can ensure the initiative produces timely, durable outcomes that advance environmental justice. Using a new collaborative process, the Honoring Chaco Initiative is intended to bring federal agencies, Tribes, advocacy groups, and stakeholders together to address the need for lasting landscape-level management of the Greater Chaco Landscape ...
Sierra Club El Paso Group statement on Castner Range designation as National Monument
On March 21, President Biden announced the designation of Avi Kwa Ame in Nevada and Castner Range in Texas as the country’s newest national monuments. The designation provides permanent protection for roughly 514,000 acres of Nevada and Texas landscapes ...
New Mexico Can Act to Prevent Ill-Advised Profit Scheme
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is scheduled in early 2023 to grant Holtec International a license to ‘temporarily’ store high-level nuclear waste near Carlsbad. Federal law requires a permanent disposal site to be identified before any interim site is established, but no such site has been identified. We need state legislation to prevent this from happening ...
Northern megafires lead to lessons
After battling two disastrous Northern New Mexico “escaped prescribed burns” this year, the U.S. Forest Service has recently completed a National Prescribed Fire Program Review. Read the recommendations to prevent future events such as the Hermit's Peak fire ...
Rio Grande Chapter working to protect Caja del Rio. 
The 107,068 acres on this plateau known as Caja del Rio are managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. These are sacred lands for the area’s pueblos. Join us in the fight to protect and preserve access to Public Lands in New Mexico! ...