Action Alerts

July Action Newsletter

What's At Stake

Last week, a federal court overturned an offshore oil-and-gas lease sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, a vibrant and sensitive ecosystem in southcentral Alaska that’s home to beluga whales, salmon, and sea otters. The decision suspends the oil lease at issue and forces Interior to reconsider its analysis of how vessel noise can harm endangered beluga whales, and contemplate fewer damaging alternatives for the lease.   

Cook Inlet also supports thriving subsistence, commercial, and recreational fisheries and a multi-faceted tourist industry that brings in people from all over the world. Alaska is experiencing the extreme consequences of the climate crisis such as coastal erosion, thawing permafrost, and fisheries collapse which would only worsen with oil-and-gas development. This is a win for Alaska Native communities, endangered beluga whales, and future generations.  

Over the years, over 56,000 action takers such as yourself urged the government to protect Cook Inlet. Legal advocacy combined with action taking is a winning combination that gets results. Nonetheless, our fight to protect the environment does not end with this decision, and we still need your support. Supporters like you rise to the occasion during every comment period and opportunity – and it makes a difference.

Read More

Protect our climate forests  

The U.S. Forest Service proposed a policy that could reduce logging and destruction of old-growth trees in national forests, but it needs to be dramatically strengthened before it is finalized. Urge the Forest Service to protect the trees. 

Tell BLM we need the strongest possible protections in the Arctic 

Threats to the Arctic are more pressing than ever – from the climate crisis to oil and gas development. But the Biden administration announced an opportunity to help protect it. Urge the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to finalize the strongest Arctic protections possible.  

Urge the EPA to ban the practice of open burning and open detonation of hazardous wastes 

For decades, military bases and private facilities have used “open burn / open detonation” to destroy unserviceable and obsolete military munitions. This practice harms the environment and human health as it results in the uncontrolled release of toxic constituents into the air, soil, and water. Urge the EPA to protect frontline communities. 

Urge Congress to oppose the Clean Electricity and Transmission Acceleration Act

Senators Joe Manchin and John Barrasso introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act – a dangerous bill that will facilitate the construction of more fossil fuel infrastructure that would lock us into decades of fossil fuel use. Join us and urge your Member of Congress to oppose this misguided bill!  

A dark grey Cook Inlet beluga calf swims with three larger white beluga whales.
A Cook Inlet beluga calf swims with three larger beluga whales. (Paul Wade / NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center)

Delivery to United States Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Environmental Protection Agency, Congress

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Your Actions Matter

Your messages make a difference, even if we have leaders who don't want to listen. Here's why.

You level the playing field.

Elected officials pay attention when they see that we are paying attention. Read more.

They may be hearing from industry lobbyists left and right, but hearing the stories of their constituents — that’s your power.

Our legislators serve at the pleasure of the people who gave them their job — you.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. When you contact your elected official, you’re putting a face and a name on an issue.

Whether or not you voted for them, they work for you, for the duration of their term.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. (Find your local, state, and federal elected officials.)

Your action is with us in court.

If a federal agency finalizes a harmful action, the record of public comments provides a basis for bringing them into court. Read more.

Throughout each of the public comment periods we alert you to, Earthjustice’s attorneys are researching and writing in-depth, technical comments to submit — detailing how the regulation could and should be stronger to protect the environment, our communities, and our planet.

We need you to join us — your specific experiences, knowledge, and voice are crucial to add to the Administrative Record through the comment periods.

Lawsuits we file that challenge weak or harmful federal regulations rely on what was submitted during the comment period. The court can only look at documents that are in the Administrative Record — including the public comments — to decide if the agency did something improper.

Your actions aid our litigation. Taking action and submitting comments during a comment period is substantively important.

It’s the law.

Federal agencies must pause what they’re doing and ask for — and consider — your comment. Read more.

Many of us may have never heard of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), but laws like these require our government to ask the public to weigh in before agencies adopt or change regulations.

Regulations essentially describe how federal agencies will carry out laws — including decisions that could undermine science, or weaken safeguards on public health.

Public comments are collected at various points throughout the federal government’s rulemaking process, including when a regulation is proposed and finalized. (Learn about the rulemaking process.) These comments become part of the official, legal public record — the “Administrative Record.”

When the public responds with a huge outpouring of support for environmental protections, these individual messages collectively undercut politicians' attempts to claim otherwise.

What this means is each of us can take a role in shaping the rules our government creates — and ensuring those rules are fair and effective.