2023 fall

On November 9^th, a federal judge upheld the Biden Administration’s approval of the Willow Project in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A). This order by the court is related to two cases challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s March 2023 Record of Decision (ROD) for the Willow Project, which approved oil production on leases held by ConocoPhillips Alaska.

Rural counties have been pushing for groundwater protection programs for several years, as unchecked groundwater pumping has threatened some smaller communities’ opportunity to grow. Despite momentum from the public in support of groundwater regulation, the Arizona Legislature faced significant pushback from private water companies’ interests, agricultural associations, and homebuilders which led to the regulation not being included in the water bill.

In April 2009, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) published a rule establishing the boundaries of the Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf population and removing federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections from the gray wolf populations in the Northern Rocky Mountain region for all states except Wyoming.

With the exception of the more recent rule change in Wyoming, for over a decade the management of the gray wolf population in the Northern Rocky Mountain region has been left to the individual states.