Do you know about the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule?
It prioritizes the health and resilience of ecosystems on public lands. The rule, legally binding on the actions and decisions of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), requires them to “protect intact landscapes, restore degraded habitat, and make informed management decisions based on science and data.” Conservation must be on an equal footing with other uses on our public lands in resource management planning.
The BLM’s Bakersfield field office was recently reminded of this in a letter signed by the Sierra Club, CalWild, The Wilderness Society, Los Padres ForestWatch, the Conservation Lands Foundation, The Wildlands Conservancy, and Carrizo Plain Conservancy, responding to the BLM’s notice of intent to prepare an oil and gas supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS). The supplemental EIS is a do-over, the result of a settlement agreement with the Center for Biological Diversity and co-plaintiffs, who filed a legal challenge to a 2019 BLM decision that proposed to open more than a million acres of public land in California to oil and gas drilling and fracking.
Under that plan, areas of critical environmental concern, wilderness study areas, lands with wilderness characteristics, critical habitat for federally listed species, and lands immediately adjacent to the Carrizo Plain National Monument and the Wind Wolves Preserve could be opened up to more oil and gas drilling. They should not be.
A new element this time around is President Trump’s so-called “national energy emergency,” per an executive order last January. The Sierra Club told the BLM that it cannot rely on the “energy emergency” to justify loosening environmental standards for oil production because the premise that a national energy emergency exists is merely a pretext for boosting fossil fuels and cutting renewable energy production.
An emergency refers to “a sudden, urgent, usually unexpected occurrence or occasion requiring immediate action,” or “an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action.” Nothing in the executive order meets this definition. Oil production is at an all-time high—see the U.S. Energy Information Agency report that the United States now produces “more crude oil than any country, ever“—and companies are sitting on more than 6,000 approved drilling permits on public lands that are not being used.
Earthjustice and Advocates for the West said much the same to Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum in May about his department’s use of “emergency procedures” to allow new oil and gas leasing to escape National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis and eliminate opportunities for public comment.
They also noted that, “In deciding to hasten permitting and leasing, the department entirely failed to consider an important factor: the cost of limiting public input. There are numerous benefits to public participation—including increased accountability; additional scientific, technical, on-the-ground, or local expertise; and increased public involvement—that the department entirely failed to consider in adopting its emergency procedures.”
In short, the Trump administration’s attempts to circumvent NEPA would “shut the public out of energy approval processes, thus compromising the quality and integrity of the Department of the Interior’s decision-making and leading to worse outcomes for communities and the environment.”
Environmental protection laws are being targeted on the federal and state levels under the false pretense that environmental protections inhibit necessary development. This red herring distracts from the reality that the largest beneficiaries of environmental rollbacks are large polluters. Environmental protection laws are first and foremost transparency laws that ensure the public and experts are aware of proposed projects and can flag any significant public health or environmental concerns.
In a recent issue of the Times of San Diego, Pam Heatherington, former director of the Environmental Center of San Luis Obispo, now heading the Environmental Center of San Diego, described the outcome of a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) challenge to a sprawling, 1,000-acre development:
“The court found that the environmental impact report had not meaningfully addressed the project’s serious wildfire risks and or its destruction of habitat for the endangered Checkerspot butterfly. The parties ultimately reached a settlement that would reduce the project’s footprint, preserve more land for rare and sensitive wildlife, and minimize wildfire dangers.”
That project had been reviewed and approved as compliant with San Diego’s general plan. That process was insufficient. Fortunately, the extra layer of review provided by environmental law made it a better and safer project—see above for the cost of limiting public input and avoiding worse outcomes for communities and the environment. That’s what CEQA and NEPA are all about, and why we must stand up in their defense. Δ
Gianna Patchen is chapter coordinator for the Santa Lucia Chapter of the Sierra Club. Andrew Christie served as chapter director from 2004 to 2023. Send comments in response to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Aug 14-24, 2025.
They are doing these drilling today because you blocked the clean energy developments of yesterday. If you want to lay blame, look no further than the mirror.