EcoWatch
The suit, filed in Los Angeles Tuesday, comes in response to the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) decision to open more than a million acres of public lands to oil and gas leasing, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The decision was finalized in December and covers eight Central California counties as well as land bordering national parks.
“Trump’s illegal, deeply unjust fracking plan would be a disaster for Central Valley communities, as well as our climate, wildlife and water,” Clare Lakewood, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) said in a press release received by EcoWatch. “We need to phase out fracking and oil drilling, not throw open our public lands to polluters. The future of our beautiful state and our children depends on it.”
CBD is joined in the suit by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Central California Environmental Justice Network, Los Padres ForestWatch, the National Parks Conservation Association, the Sierra Club, Patagonia Works and the Wilderness Society. Earthjustice is representing them. The groups contend that the plan is illegal because the BLM failed to consider the harm fracking in the region could do to public health, recreation, groundwater, air and the climate. They also warn of the potential for earthquakes caused by the extraction technique.
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