Groups Sue Biden Admin for Threatening ‘Climate-Imperiled’ Wildlife With Drilling Permits

Citing a trio of federal laws, environmental organizations sued the Biden administration on Wednesday for further jeopardizing “climate-imperiled species” by issuing more than 3,500 oil and gas drilling permits on public lands in New Mexico and Wyoming.

“The Biden administration is literally drilling away the climate,” declared Jeremy Nichols, director of the Climate and Energy Program at WildEarth Guardians, one of the groups behind the new suit, filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C.

U.S. President Joe Biden has come under fire from campaigners for not only failing to deliver on climate-related campaign pledges—including a vow to end new federal fossil fuel leasing—but also outpacing his predecessor for permit approvals during his first year in office.

“Today’s lawsuit is about enforcing the reality that more oil and gas extraction only stands to fuel the climate crisis, contrary to the promises of President Biden,” Nichols said Wednesday.

The lawsuit targets Biden’s Interior Department and an agency within it—the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)—as well as the leaders of each, arguing that the administration’s drilling permit approvals violate the Endangered Species Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act.

“Fossil fuels are driving the extinction crisis, and the Bureau of Land Management is making things worse by failing to protect these imperiled species,” asserted Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, another group behind the case.

“The agency’s cursory approval of more than 3,500 drilling permits contradicts President Biden’s pledges to address the terrifying threat of climate change,” said Hartl. “Every new well takes polar bears and many other species one step closer to extinction.”

Kyle Tisdel of the Western Environmental Law Center, who filed the suit Wednesday, highlighted the disconnect between the need for climate action now and the administration’s decisions.

“The climate crisis is happening now, causing harms that are disproportionately felt by environmental justice communities, and it requires immediate action in order to maintain a livable planet,” Tisdel said, noting the federal oil and gas program’s planet-heating emissions.

“While President Biden has acknowledged the urgency of this crisis, it is time for action to align with rhetoric,” the attorney continued. “The Bureau of Land Management has admitted that continued oil and gas exploitation is a significant cause of the climate crisis, yet the agency continues to recklessly issue thousands of new oil and gas drilling permits, violating its duty to prevent unnecessary and undue degradation of public lands.”

The move comes as scientists highlight the connections between the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis, with one paper published earlier this month in the journal BioScience warning that “as the window to avoid far-reaching and irreversible impacts on people and nature rapidly closes, the current actions to address these global challenges are insufficient.”

Originally published at Commondreams.org, written by Jessica Corbett.