Latest / The Wild Idea / The Wild Line: Oil Drilling in Alaska’s Arctic Refuge, California Pipeline Restart, Scientists Release Suppressed Nature Report
Transcript
- Announcer 0:00 Bren The following is a production of wild idea media. Bill 0:06 Welcome to the wild line where land stories are the lead stories. This is our report for March 13, 2026, Bill. Anders Reynolds 0:13 The federal government is moving forward with two distinct plans to lease ecologically and culturally important lands across Alaska's Arctic to oil companies. The first plan involving Alaska's Arctic Refuge has officially closed and wrapped up its call for nominations. As we wait for that lease sale to be formally noticed, we're seeing a powerful show of public opposition, with over 150,000 public comments opposing the sale. But there's still time to engage on the second plan for the Western Arctic, where a lease sale will take place next week, the Alaska wilderness League and its partners are hosting two community hearings on the Arctic Refuge at the end of March in Seattle and Portland. These gatherings will bring people together to hear from the glitch and steering committee and raise their voices in support of protecting the refuge. We'll leave information about those gatherings in the show notes, I hear there will be free pizza. Looking ahead, on March 18, the federal government will auction its drilling rights in the western Arctic, and ConocoPhillips is the most likely company to show up and bid on those leases with key environmental protections rolled back and legislative options exhausted, the only thing standing between the Arctic and more drilling is your voice again. Alaska wilderness League has provided a toolkit with targets, talking points and platform links, and the ask for people who are interested is simple, help amplify the call to action and encourage your friends, families, loved ones, to make their voices heard where these companies are already talking. You can find the link to that toolkit, where else in the show notes. Bill 1:43 Meanwhile, the Department of Interior has finalized its revised procedures for environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. The revised procedures shift away from comprehensive regulations toward more flexible guidance housed primarily in the departmental handbook. While these changes are unlikely to affect NEPA reviews that are already well underway, they have important implications for the NEPA process and timelines, public participation and litigation risk for future DOI led environmental reviews for new projects, Project Sponsors need to stay current on guidance documents such as the DOI NEPA Handbook, Bureau specific and other agency procedures and evolving case law. Anders Reynolds 2:28 The Justice Department has ruled that the Trump administration has the authority to restart a pipeline off the central California coast that once spilled 100,000 gallons of oil, fouling beaches and creating a miles long oil slick sable offshore is the company that asked the administration for help in restarting that pipeline that's been shut down for years. The ruling states that the Trump administration has the authority to override federal environmental laws as well as California state law and objections under the Defense production act. California officials have previously denied an operating permit, stating that the corrosion issues that led to the earlier spill have only gotten worse. Bill 3:07 Anders, let's quickly dig into some state news. First, the Virginia General Assembly has approved HB 597 the wildlife corridor grant fund sponsored by delegate Shelly Simons, which would reduce wildlife vehicle collisions, protect infrastructure and support healthier ecosystems. The bill now heads to Governor Abigail spanberger for signature, and in Oregon, the Bureau of Land Management has issued a notice of intent to dramatically increase timber production on the so called Oregon and California railroad lands, or as they're often referred to, as the O and C lands. BLM stated they intended to produce about a billion board feet annually, up from two 50 million in the announced intent to change the O and C land's Resource Management Plan, the bureau states in the notice that this increase is to address wildfire threats and for barred owl management and to meet objectives outlined in certain Trump administration executive orders. Opponents of the move outline that industrial clear cuts and tree plantations are not the solution. The small diameter thinning and prescribed fires would better address fire risk, and they note that the barred owls preferred habitat is old growth stands, not clear cuts, California's Death Valley National Park, normally one of the driest and hottest places on Earth, is experiencing a rare super bloom, changing the desert into a landscape of blossoming golden wildflowers, according to park ranger Matthew Lamar, steady rainfall and warm temperatures the past few months have contributed to this year's bloom being The strongest The park has seen in a decade. In Montana, over a dozen of public land sportsmen and conservation organizations are wrapping up a series of seven public meetings on the administration's proposed rescission of the roadless rule. The groups held meetings and communities surrounding all of the state's National Forest and heard from supporters. Keeping the rule and in some pockets from those that support rescinding the rule. But why was it these non governmental organizations or NGOs hosting these meetings and not the Forest Service? We posed that question to one of the hosts, Hilary Eisen wild Montana's federal policy director. Speaker 1 5:17 We are doing it because the Forest Service is not so before deciding to host all these meetings, there was a all of the involved organizations work together to circulate a petition around Montana, where we called on the Foreign Service, specifically on Chief Schultz to host public meetings. We ended up about 4000 signatures on that petition, which we submitted the beginning of February, and have yet to receive any sort of response from the agency, from the chief. In addition, a number of organizations around the state had also submitted individual letters, starting back at the roadless rule, Notice of Intent scoping period, or the rescission Notice of Intent scoping period, asking for public meetings. So there have been numerous requests to the agency to hold meetings, and since the agency is not listening or not responding, we felt like public meetings are important and somebody needs to do it. And so we will do that. Bill 6:16 Just this week, the wild idea hosted our first Community webinar on the roadless rule, and that is available now on our YouTube channel and will be released as an episode of the podcast on March 31 Meanwhile, in Wyoming, legislators have approved SJ nine, which affirms Wyoming support to keeping public lands in public hands. This resolution important on its face, is even more inspiring, considering that just a year ago, the same legislative body only narrowly defeated a resolution calling for almost all the federal public lands in Wyoming to be turned over to the state. And finally, in Northeast Ohio, sightings of Bigfoot have been rapidly multiplying since last week, with at least seven distinct reports leading to speculation that a whole family of big feet might be migrating through the area. This is, unfortunately not a joke, but rather a story being widely reported across the media. You'd think seven sightings would yield at least one photo, but you'd be wrong. Anders Reynolds 7:15 Wow, I appreciate that state coverage bill, but I'm gonna go international in British Columbia, our northern neighbor, is seeing a fight play out that is eerily similar to battles over critical mineral mining seen in the United States mining in pristine and often conservation and recreation focused landscapes. The Save record Ridge Action Committee society was successful in asking the provincial Supreme Court to place an injunction on the construction of why resources proposed mineral mine from proceeding until the group can challenge the British Columbia government's decision to not require an environmental review of the proposed magnesium open pit mine near Russell. This facility would be the closest mine to a BC municipality, and in this case, a community known for mountain biking, hiking and batch country skiing that recently played host to the British Columbia games. The provincial Supreme Court ruled that there should be a judicial review hearing in Russell in May. Bill 8:13 Finally, during the Black Rock infrastructure summit this week, Department of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told a crowd of folks gathered for the investment firm's annual event that people who want to protect public lands are, quote, not financially literate. The comment came in response to a question about streamlining permitting processes. Burgum answered that the administration hopes to reverse some of the protections put in place to protect American land and waters from unnecessary drilling, making the point that these resources are more valuable as tools of a boom and bust extractive economy than they are as part of a sustainable recreation economy. Why is this insulting? Well, the outdoor recreation economy dwarfs the extraction economy. So Burgum should question just who is financially literate, but it also underscores the power of a new report killed by the Trump administration, but released independently this week, which says our natural world is in crisis and continued degradation will lead to impacts not just to other species, but to our own. What had been titled The National nature assessment was shelved immediately after Burgum and Trump came to power, the scientists behind that report continued their work on a volunteer basis, and a draft of what is now called the nature record has been made available in the past week. The report explores not only actions that harm nature, but also how people are affected by nature and its loss with chapters on human health, the economy and national security, we will link to the draft of the report in our show notes. That is our report for March 13, 2026 we will be back next week with another edition of The Wild line. In the meantime, next Tuesday, we bring you a St Patrick's Day edition of the wild idea with Tim Mahoney as we explore the process of securing wilderness designation for the Irish wilderness in Missouri's. Mark Twain National Forest, until then act up and run wild. Announcer 10:06 The wild line is a production of wild idea media production and editing by Bren Russell at podblad Digital support by Holly wilkeshevsky at daypack digital. Our theme music Spring Hill Jack is from railroad Earth and was composed by John skihan. The executive producer is Laura Hodge. Learn more about us at the wild idea.com you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai