Trump taps #OilIndustry insider to oversee drilling on #PublicLands

#BureauOfLandManagement nominee #KathleenSgamma heads a #FossilFuel industry trade group that sued the Biden administration over a landmark #conservation rule.

By Maxine Joselow

"President Donald #Trump has nominated oil and gas advocate #KathleenSgamma to lead the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, the agency tasked with managing millions of acres of public lands and waters for the benefit of all Americans.

"The nomination of Sgamma, who heads a Denver-based oil and gas industry trade group called the #WesternEnergyAlliance, heralds a seismic shift in the management of roughly 245 million acres of public property — about one-tenth of the nation’s land mass.

"If confirmed by the Senate, she would be a key architect of Trump’s #DrillBabyDrill agenda alongside Interior Secretary and '#EnergyCzar' #DougBurgum. An MIT graduate who previously worked in consulting, she has advocated for the BLM to prioritize oil and gas drilling, #HardrockMining and #livestock grazing on public lands nationwide.

"A spokesman for Sgamma did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"During his first term, Trump tapped conservative lawyer William Perry Pendley to lead the BLM on an acting basis. But Trump never nominated Pendley, a vocal advocate of selling off public lands, to helm the agency on a permanent basis, prompting a rebuke from a federal judge.

"President Joe Biden in 2021 chose Tracy Stone-Manning, a prominent Montana-based #environmentalist, to lead the BLM. Earlier in her career, Stone-Manning worked on conservation policy at the #NationalWildlifeFederation and led Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality.

"Under Biden, the BLM finalized a landmark rule that sought to put conservation, #recreation and #RenewableEnergy development on equal footing with #ResourceExtraction on public lands. Sgamma’s Western Energy Alliance filed a lawsuit challenging that rule, which the Trump administration is expected to overturn.

"In an interview with The Washington Post in April, Sgamma criticized the regulation for allowing ranchers, renewable-energy developers and other interests to lease federal lands for the purpose of #conservation and #HabitatRestoration.

"We have no choice but to litigate,' she said. 'These conservation leases seem to be designed to preclude energy development on federal lands.'

#Environmentalists criticized #Sgamma’s nomination.

"'This choice shows that the new administration will leave no favor ungranted for the oil and gas industry and the wealthy #FossilFuel #executives who funded Trump’s campaign,' #AlanZibel, oil and gas research director with the liberal advocacy group #PublicCitizen, said in an email.

"#JeffEshelman, president and #CEO of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, which represents small oil producers, praised Sgamma’s selection while critiquing the Biden administration."

Original article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/02/12/trump-bureau-land-management-kathleen-sgamma/

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/tmTH6#selection-645.0-724.1
#USPol #BigOilAndGas #Oiligarchy #Oligarchy #BigOilAndGas #BigOilKnew #KillCapitalism #WaterIsLife #LandIsLife #CorporateColonialism #Corporatocracy #BigOilCriminals #ClimateEmergency #ClimateCatastrophe #ClimateCrisis
#NoMiningWithoutConsent #NoMiningOnConservationLands #DrainTheSwamp? More like, #OilUpTheSwamp!#IndepdendentPetroleumAssociationOfAmerica

From 2019: Criminalization of #HumanRights Defenders of #IndigenousPeoples Resisting #ExtractiveIndustries in the United States

Report to the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights

Prepared by the University of Arizona Rogers College of Law, Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program on behalf of the Water Protector Legal Collective

6/24/2019

Introduction

1. Peaceful demonstrations are a catalyst for the advancement of human rights. Yet around the world governments are criminalizing dissent and suppressing public #protest, often as a means to protect #CorporateInterests. In this context, indigenous peoples increasingly find themselves as the subjects of arrests, criminal prosecution and police violence when defending the lands they rely upon for their existence and survival from #ResourceExtraction by industries who are operating without the free prior and informed consent of the affected communities.

2. This report is submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (#IACHR) in conjunction with a thematic hearing held during the 172nd period of sessions. At the hearing,
Commissioners heard directly from those involved in the indigenous-led resistance to the #DakotaAccessPipeline (DAPL) at Standing Rock, North Dakota. This report addresses the criminalization and suppression of protest by indigenous human rights defenders and their allies by United States (U.S.) federal, state and local governments, working hand-in-hand with private security forces [#Blackwater], specifically in relation to the construction and operation of #DAPL by #EnergyTransfer
Partners and Dakota Access, LLC (Dakota Access) and the connected #BayouBridgePipeline (collectively the “#BakkenPipeline”).

3. Standing Rock is an emblematic case of #IndigenousResistance to extractive industry that drew attention from around the world as water protectors met on the banks of the #MissouriRiver in peaceful assembly in what was the largest gathering of indigenous peoples in the U.S. in 100 years. Standing Rock is merely one example of how the U.S. government works with industry to approve energy projects carried out without the meaningful participation or consent of
indigenous nations. Indigenous peoples are left with no choice but to peacefully protest and then are criminalized for their efforts to defend their lands and resources.

4. Since Standing Rock, there has been an alarming trend by the United States government and state legislatures to criminalize opposition to pipelines and other energy projects. These #AntiProtest and so-called “#CriticalInfrastructure laws” progress towards criminalizing dissent and implicitly condone the use of excessive force towards human rights defenders, often including indigenous peoples and their allies who are at the forefront of resistance to extractive industries. As the international community has acknowledged, these laws are incompatible with domestic and international law. The governments’ use of excessive force and mass arrests to threaten, intimidate, and silence “#WaterProtectors” seeking to defend their lands, resources, and #culture, and the collusion with private security forces, violate fundamental human rights to #FreeSpeech and Aassembly enshrined in international human rights law and the #USConstitution.

5. The information provided here builds on a 2016 request for Precautionary Measures filed by the #StandingRock, #CheyenneRiver and #YanktonSioux tribes, past Commission hearings on similar matters that remain unsettled, and reports on Indigenous Peoples and Extractive Activities, and the Criminalization of #HumanRightsDefenders. In addition, the United Nations has reported on the situation at #StandingRock through the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of of indigenous peoples. Despite condemnation from these international bodies and mechanisms, water protectors continue to suffer impacts from the criminalization of their dissent, while the United States moves forward permitting new #pipeline projects on indigenous territories.

Read more:
https://law.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/FINAL%20IPLP-WPLC%20Report%20to%20IACHR%20-%206-24-19.pdf

Ignoring science, #environmental protection and international law – #G7 endorses Japan’s #Fukushima water discharge plans

Legacy of #FukushimaDisaster shows #NuclearEnergy is no solution to energy and #ClimateCrisis

#GreenpeaceInternational, April 16, 2023

Sapporo, Japan – "The nations of the G7 have chosen politics over science and the protection of the #MarineEnvironment with their decision today to support the Japanese government’s plans to discharge Fukushima #RadioactiveWaste water into the Pacific Ocean.

"The 1.3 million cubic meters/tons of radioactive waste water at the #FukushimaDaiichi plant, currently in tanks, is scheduled to be discharged into the Pacific Ocean this year. Nations in the Asia Pacific region, led by the Pacific Island Forum, have strongly voiced their opposition to the plans. Some of the world’s leading oceanographic institutes and marine scientists have criticised the weakness of the scientific justification applied by #TEPCO, the owner of the #NuclearPlant, warned against using the #PacificOcean as a #DumpingGround for radioactive contaminated water, and called for alternatives to discharge to be applied.

“'The Japanese government is desperate for international endorsement for its Pacific Ocean radioactive water dump plans. It has failed to protect its own citizens, including the vulnerable fishing communities of Fukushima, as well as nations across the wider #AsiaPacific region. The aftermath of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima is still strongly felt, and the Japanese government has failed to fully investigate the effects of discharging multiple #radionuclides on #MarineLife. The government is obligated under international law to conduct a comprehensive environmental impact assessment, including the impact of transboundary marine pollution, but has failed to do so. Its plans are a violation of the UN Convention Law of the Sea.

"'The marine environment is under extreme pressure from #ClimateChange, #overfishing and #ResourceExtraction. Yet, the G7 thinks it’s acceptable to endorse plans to deliberately dump nuclear waste into the ocean. Politics inside the G7 at Sapporo just trumped science, environmental protection, and international law,' said Shaun Burnie, Senior Nuclear Specialist at Greenpeace East Asia.

"'#GreenpeaceEastAsia analysis has detailed the failures of liquid waste processing [ALPS] technology at the Fukushima Daiichi plant and the environmental threats posed by the releases. There is no prospect of an end to the nuclear crisis at the plant as current decommissioning plans are not feasible. Furthermore, the report finds the nuclear fuel debris in the reactors cannot be completely removed and will continue to contaminate the ground water over many decades. Claims that the discharges will take 30 years is inaccurate as in reality, it will continue into the next century. Viable alternatives to discharge, specifically long term storage and processing, have been ignored by the Japanese government.

"'The Japanese government’s attempt to normalise the Fukushima nuclear disaster is directly linked to its overall energy policy objective of increasing the operation of nuclear reactors again after the 2011 disaster. 54 reactors were available in 2011 compared to only ten reactors in 2022, generating 7.9% of the nation’s electricity in FY21 compared to 29% in 2010. Meanwhile, five of the other six G7 governments led by France, the US and the UK are also aggressively promoting nuclear power development.

"'The idea that the nuclear industry is capable of delivering a safe and sustainable energy future is delusional and a dangerous distraction from the only viable energy solution to the climate emergency which is 100% #RenewableEnergy. The global growth of low cost renewable energy has been phenomenal – but it has to be much faster and at an even greater scale if carbon emissions are to be reduced by 2030. Approval for nuclear waste dumping and nuclear energy expansion sound like the 1970’s but we have no time for such distractions. We are in a race to save the climate in the 21st century, and only renewables can deliver this,' said Shaun Burnie.

https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/59193/science-environmental-protection-international-law-g7-japans-fukushima-water-discharge/

#FukushimaAnniversary #FukushimaIsntOver #RethinkNotRestart
#NoNukes #Japan #TEPCOLies #WaterIsLife #Bioaccumulation