BREAKING: Court Denies Offshore Oil Lease Sale in America's Arctic 22JAN14

THIS is a great victory for the people of Alaska, the entire U.S. and the wildlife in and around the Chukchi Sea and Alaskan Arctic region. Well done EarthJustice!!!!

Court Denies Offshore Oil Lease Sale in America’s Arctic Lease Sale 193 in the Chukchi Sea remanded by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals JANUARY 22, 2014 ANCHORAGE, AK — Today, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Department of the Interior violated the law when it sold offshore oil and gas leases in the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska. The decision stems from a lawsuit filed by a coalition of Alaska Native and conservation groups represented by Earthjustice. “The Obama administration now has the chance to do right by the Arctic and the planet by keeping oil drilling out of the Chukchi Sea. It makes no sense to open up the fragile, irreplaceable, and already melting Arctic Ocean to risky drilling for dirty oil that will only exacerbate climate change already wreaking havoc on the Arctic and elsewhere,” said Erik Grafe, an attorney at Earthjustice, which represents the groups. In response to the decision, the organizations issued the following joint statement: “Today’s ruling is a victory for the Arctic Ocean. The government has no business offering oil companies leases in the Chukchi Sea. The area is home to iconic species such as polar bear, bowhead whales, and walrus and to a vibrant indigenous subsistence culture. Drilling for oil puts at risk the region’s wildlife and people, and it takes us off the path toward a clean energy future. “For the second time, a court has found that the government ignored basic legal protections for our ocean resources in deciding to open the Chukchi Sea to offshore oil leasing. The Obama administration must now take seriously its obligation to re-think whether to allow risky industrial activities in the Chukchi Sea. As Shell’s problems have clearly demonstrated, companies are not ready to drill in the Arctic Ocean.” Background: The Chukchi Sea is part of America’s Arctic Ocean north of Alaska. It is home to iconic species such as polar bears, walrus, beluga whales, bowhead whales, and seals. It is also home to vibrant Alaska Native communities that have depended for millennia on the ocean for their subsistence way of life. The region is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world, putting tremendous strain on its wildlife and people. There is currently no oil and gas development in the Chukchi Sea. The Chukchi Sea and its coast are remote—the coast contains only four small communities that are not connected to a road system, lack deep-water harbors, and can only be reached by plane or, in summer, by boat. The region is hundreds of miles from the nearest coast-guard station and lacks rescue and oil spill response capacity. The Chukchi Sea lease sale, Sale 193, was originally held in 2008 by the Bush administration. It offered nearly 30 million acres in the Chukchi Sea for oil drilling—an area larger than the size of Pennsylvania. Prior to the lease sale, there were no active oil leases in the sea. In 2010 The Federal District Court in Alaska determined that the original lease sale violated the National Environmental Protection Act, one of the foundations of U.S. environmental law, because the Department of Interior had failed to address the widely recognized gaps in what is known about nearly every species in the Chukchi Sea. It required the agency to reconsider the decision. In October 2011, the Obama administration also decided to reaffirm the lease sale, despite the acknowledged gaps in information. The District Court upheld the Obama administration’s affirmation of the lease sale. The appeal decided today followed. The Court today agreed with the groups that the Department of Interior failed adequately to analyze the potentially dramatic environmental effects of the sale before offering the leases. It determined that the agency had analyzed “only the best case scenario for environmental harm, assuming oil development,” and that this analysis “skews the data toward fewer environmental impacts, and thus impedes a full and fair discussion of the potential effects of the project.” The agency will have to revise or supplement its analysis for the lease sale once again and must reconsider its lease sale decision. Read the full press release at http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2014/court-denies-offshore-oil-lease-sale-in-america-s-arctic.

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Five Western senators question Obama on proposed Alaskan mine & TELL EPA TO ACT ON ITS FINDINGS AND REJECT THE PEBBLE MINE! 9JUN13

THE NRDC and a host of other environmental groups have been waging a campaign against the Pebble Mine for the last few years. It is good these five Senators from the Pacific Coast have joined the struggle, now it is time for all of us to join in
. To find out more about the environmental threat from the Pebble mine go to the NRDC's Stop The Pebble Mine campaign webpage http://www.savebiogems.org/stop-pebble-mine/?__utma=1.119269012.1370818096.1370818096.1370818096.1&__utmb=1.2.10.1370818096&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1370818096.1.1.utmcsr=link|utmccn=email|utmcmd=alert&__utmv=-&__utmk=182721574
and check out Frontline's report on it at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/alaska-gold/
YOU can send a message in opposing the Pebble Mine to the EPA Acting Administrator until 30JUN13 by clicking the link in this call to action from the NRDC....

		The time for studying the Pebble Mine is over. The EPA has once again confirmed that the PebbleMine would be a disaster for Alaska’s Bristol Bay. Tell the agency to act on its findings and reject the Pebble Mine! Enough study. It’s time for action! The EPA has just released its latest scientific findings. And once again it has determined that the Pebble Mine would be devastating for the spectacular wilderness, wildlife and people of Alaska’s Bristol Bay. The time for study is over! Tell the EPA to finalize its assessment and stop the Pebble Mine.  The agency is inviting the public to send comments until June 30 -- so we’re aiming to flood them with 500,000 anti-Pebble messages by month’s end. Please do your part today! There are 10 billion reasons for EPA to stop this mega-mine. That’s how many tons of contaminated mining waste the Pebble Minewould produce, endangering one of America’s great natural treasures. I’m sure you agree: We can’t stand by and allow a toxic mega-mine to destroy a world-class salmon fishery that provides 14,000 jobs and generates $1.5 billion per year just to fill the pockets of a few global miningcompanies. The EPA has produced all the scientific evidence it needs to stop this mine. What’s more, it has the clear authority under the Clean Water Act to do so. But the agency and the White House are under enormous pressure from the mining industry to give the Pebble Mine the green light.That’s why it’s so crucial that they hear from 500,000 outraged Americansright away. Please tell EPA you will not tolerate the destruction of one of our planet’s last and greatest wild places. Tell them to turn their latest findings into action by rejecting the Pebble Mine. Thank you for standing with NRDC and our local partners in defense of Bristol Bay. Sincerely, Frances Beinecke President Natural Resources Defense Council

FIVE WESTERN SENATORS QUESTION OBAMA ON PROPOSED ALASKAN MINE

By Juliet Eilperin, Sunday, June 9, 5:37 PM

Five Democratic senators are asking President Obama to consider blocking a proposed mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, a move that could heighten pressure on theEnvironmental Protection Agency to veto the project.
In a letter Monday, the group of senators from Washington, Oregon and California, led by Maria Cantwell (Wash.), argue that their states could suffer economically if a huge gold-and-copper mine moves forward. The EPA is conducting a scientific review of how the project, underwritten by mining giants Northern Dynasty and Anglo American, would affect the region’s aquatic life.
The group of senators — which includes Patty Murray (Wash.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) and Barbara Boxer (Calif.) — points to a recent study by the University of Alaska Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) that estimates that salmon fishing in Bristol Bay provides their states with $500 million in direct income. In addition, the study says, Washington, Oregon and California benefit from $674 million in economic activity from the region’s salmon fishing and processing.
“Our states have a strong maritime history of which our commercial fishing industries are a key part,” the senators write. “In order to maintain these direct fishing and processing jobs, and the jobs supported by associated businesses like gear manufacturers, shipbuilders, suppliers and other maritime businesses, we must maintain healthy, sustainable fishery resources.”
In the letter, the senators ask Obama to “make staff from both the Council on Environmental Quality and the Department of Commerce available to our staff to discuss the implications of this economic report, and how these two agencies, specifically, are working with the EPA to protect our maritime economies.”
Under the Clean Water Act, the EPA can invoke the rarely used section 404(c) authority , which bars the Army Corps of Engineers from issuing a federal permit on the grounds that a project would harm the region’s waterways, fish and wildlife.
The EPA issued a draft watershed assessment last year saying the mine would probably cause the loss of between 54 and 89 miles of streams and between four and seven square miles of wetlands, and any mining accident there could cause serious damage to the salmon habitat. Agency officials are accepting comments on the analysis until June 30 and have said they have not decided what action they plan to take on the proposed mine.
The coalition backing the mine argues that its economic benefits would outweigh any possible environmental damage, and Alaska senators Lisa Murkowski (R) and Mark Begich (D) have warned the EPA against issuing a “pre-emptive veto” of the project. Last month, the Pebble Mine Partnership released an economic analysis estimating that the project would generate 2,500 construction jobs during the five years that it would take to build the facility and up to $180 million in taxes and royalties.
The EPA could not be reached for comment Sunday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/five-western-senators-question-obama-on-proposed-alaskan-mine/2013/06/09/80cc0c90-d115-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html?wprss=rss_politics

STOP THE PEBBLE MINE! HERE IS THE AD IN THE LONDON FINANCIAL TIMES TODAY 19APR12

HERE is the ad from the NRDC that ran in the NY Times on 16APR12 and is in the London (U.K.) Financial Times today while representatives of the NRDC and other environmental organizations as well as residents of Bristol Bay and the area of of proposed mine testify against the mine at the annual shareholders meetings of anglo american and rio tinto in London.

		You Helped Us Turn Up the Heat! Thanks to you, our full-page ad exposing the mining giants behind the Pebble Mine ran in Monday’s New York Times. Pressure is building on the companies to take No for an answer. View the Ad Again. We did it! Thanks to donations from thousands of supporters like you, our hard-hitting ad slamming the two British-based corporations behind the disastrous Pebble Mine appeared in Monday’s national edition of The New York Times. The ad will also run in London’s Financial Times on Thursday, the same day that both companies will be holding their annual shareholders meetings -- forcing investors to ask themselves if they really want a share of this environmental and financial disaster. NRDC will be delivering 400,000 new Letters of Protest to those meetings and we’ll be testifying, alongside representatives from Bristol Bay, against this unacceptable assault on one of America’s last and greatest wild places. Thanks to you, our public mobilization campaign is reaching millions of people -- on both sides of the Atlantic -- with the ugly truth behind this toxic mega-mine. Thank you for standing with us in this fight. I’ll be sure to keep you updated in the days and weeks ahead. Sincerely, Frances Beinecke President Natural Resources Defense Council

STOP THE PEBBLE MINE! from NRDC 5APR12

THE battle against the Pebble mine in Alaska continues and the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is asking people to watch this video and then sign their petition to rio tinto and anglo american in time to be delivered with tens of thousands of other's signatures to these companies shareholder meetings on 19 APR12. Click the link to participate......

“Please watch our new video about the Pebble Mine, then make your voice heard in London when and where it counts.” -- Robert Redford Two weeks from now, foreign mining giants Anglo American and Rio Tinto -- two of the major backers of the disastrous Pebble Mine -- will hold their annual shareholder meetings in London. There’s no better time for you and me to shine a harsh spotlight on their plans and turn up the heat on their executives and investors. That’s why I joined with NRDC to make a new, hard-hitting video about this outrageous assault on an American natural treasure. But we’re counting on you to do the rest. Please watch this one-minute video, then sign our Petition of Protest. It will be delivered directly to the shareholder meetings in London by representatives of NRDC. Here’s the ugly truth: the Pebble Mine would dump some 10 billion tons of toxin-laced mining waste into one of our nation’s last and greatest wild places -- endangering a wildlife paradise, the world’s greatest sockeye salmon runs and the people who depend on that extraordinary fishery for survival. Is it any wonder that the Native communities and fishermen of Bristol Bay have united against this apocalyptic threat? Rio Tinto and Anglo American love to talk about their respect for local communities. Talk is cheap. Despite overwhelming local opposition, these global corporations continue bulldozing ahead with plans that could destroy the very headwaters of Bristol Bay. You have to wonder what part of “No” these companies don’t understand. Two weeks from now, we’re going to hold them accountable in their own backyard. Please join me in telling Anglo American and Rio Tinto that they are in for the fight of their lives. Watch the video and sign our new Petition right away. We will deliver it, along with your signature, directly to the shareholder meetings on April 19. People around the world have already sent 750,000 messages voicing their opposition to the Pebble Mine. Help us make it to one million strong! And thank you for fighting alongside me and NRDC to stop the Pebble Mine. Sincerely, Robert Redford Trustee Natural Resources Defense Council