Health advocates, Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency, and members of Northern Arizona University’s Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals, with decades of expertise in monitoring air quality and community outreach, are considering funding to install air monitors in possibly all 150 Navajo Nation schools. ...
On August 14, the US EPA finalized its proposals to eliminate methane protections from the EPA’s New Source Performance Standards. This rollback undermines EPA’s own mission by threatening public health, and disproportionately hurts Black and Brown communities who are already exposed to air pollution from oil and gas development at much higher rates – the same communities that are already suffering the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic ...
As federal and state health guidelines were announced in March in response to COVID-19, New Mexico’s entire congressional delegation, Tribal leaders, Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Dept., and multiple groups called on Interior Secretary Bernhardt to extend the May 28 comment deadline to allow for the public and state and tribal governments to meaningfully engage. Instead of heeding pleas to extend the comment period, 15 days before the deadline the BLM and BIA held four virtual meetings. That did not go well ...
