On Feb. 24, President Obama vetoed a bill that would have forced approval of the TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline.

President Obama will soon make a bigger decision — whether or not to approve the pipeline’s permit.

Thank President Obama for his leadership in vetoing the bill, and urge him to reject this dirty, dangerous project on WORC's Action Page.

Over the past 18 months, trains carrying Bakken crude oil have derailed and exploded in North Dakota, Alabama, Quebec, Ontario, Virginia, and now West Virginia.

Who’s next?

Despite the explosiveness of Bakken crude, North Dakota regulators have let oil drillers off the hook.

Unlike in Texas and other oil drilling states, North Dakota does not require oil companies to strip out all explosive crude components, like propane and butane.

Go to WORC’s Action Page to contact Gov. Dalrymple, and to ask your governor to send North Dakota a clear message — make Bakken oil safe before shipping it through communities along the rail lines. (Photo of Casselton, N.D., derailment courtesy of GreenPeace)

In papers filed Feb. 9 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, industry opponents to the U.S. country of origin labeling (COOL) law dropped their longstanding case against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). This ends the lawsuit, American Meat Institute (AMI) et al. v. U.S. Department of Agriculture et al., originally filed in July 2013 by domestic and international meatpackers and trade groups that sought to strike-down the popular labeling law that informs consumers where the meat they purchase was born, raised, and slaughtered.

R-CALF USA, Food & Water Watch, Western Organization for Resource Councils and the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association intervened on behalf of the USDA in the lawsuit along with other farm, commodity and consumer groups. This legal intervention is only part of a longstanding nationwide campaign to enact, implement and protect COOL.

“Congress must abandon its efforts to meddle with meat labels, which are overwhelmingly popular with ranchers and consumers,” said Mabel Dobbs, a rancher from Weiser, Idaho, and member of the Western Organization of Resource Councils. “Even the meatpackers have given up now on their effort to stop COOL in the courts. It’s time for Congress to leave these commonsense labels alone.”

• Read news release

A report released Jan. 28 by Headwaters Economics finds that taxpayers are not receiving a fair return on the leasing of publicly-owned coal. The report, “An Assessment of U.S. Federal Coal Royalties - Current Royalty Structure, Effective Royalty Rates, and Reform Options,” analyzes how the federal government obtains revenues from its coal, estimates effective royalty rates, reviews problems with the current system, and assesses reform options.

Headwaters says the Department of Interior’s royalty structure fails to provide a fair return for taxpayer-owned coal because the average effective royalty rate of 4.9 percent falls well short of the rate required by law and is significantly lower than the effective rate paid on taxpayer-owned oil and gas.

More than 80 percent of federal coal comes from the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming.

Statement by Bob LeResche for WORC and the Powder River Basin Resource Council on the release of “An Assessment of U.S. Federal Coal Royalties - Current Royalty Structure, Effective Royalty Rates, and Reform Options.”

Headwaters Economics has shown that loopholes in the Department of the Interior coal royalty system have allowed Big Coal to avoid paying the full amount due federal taxpayers. The loss to Americans is substantial – roughly $850 million between 2008 and 2012. This report shows it is past time for Secretary Sally Jewell and Interior to close these loopholes and ensure the public collects the full value of coal royalties. It’s time to start focusing on getting a fair price for our publicly owned coal resource and to begin collecting fair royalties for the American people.

On Dec. 6, the WORC Board of Directors voted unanimously to accept applications for membership by Western Native Voice and the Idaho Organization of Resource Councils.

“We are pleased to welcome these two groups into the WORC,” said Norm Cimon, outgoing Chair of WORC. “The Idaho Organization of Resource Councils hosts an emerging grassroots base in Idaho, while Western Native Voice extends our engagement with Native Americans communities throughout Montana. Both groups strengthen our regional network and our ability to impact local, state, and national policy decisions.”

• Read news release

WORC and Friends of the Earth, with the support of philanthropist Paul G. Allen, today filed a lawsuit to require the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement for the federal coal leasing program.

There has not been a comprehensive environmental review of the federal coal leasing program since 1979. Since that time, scientific evidence has established that greenhouse gases produced by coal mining and combustion endanger the public health and welfare. The BLM, however, has never analyzed the coal leasing program’s impact on climate change.

The complaint argues that the results of this analysis will compel the BLM to deliver on its legal obligation to promote environmentally responsible management of public lands on behalf of the citizens of the United States.

“More than 80 percent of federal coal comes from the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming. People living in the Powder River Basin have endured many hardships not predicted in the outdated environmental studies including, lack of access to grazing lands, un-restored groundwater aquifers, toxic emissions from explosions, costly and dangerous railroad traffic in major cities to name a few,” said Bob LeResche, Vice Chair of WORC and rancher from Clearmont, Wyo. “A full environmental study will enable the BLM to fulfill their duty to promote environmentally responsible management of public lands in light of climate change on behalf of the citizens of the United States.”

• Read news release
• Read complaint
• Read Paul Allen’s op-ed in Huffington Post

Surging oil production in shale hot spots, like the Bakken in North Dakota and Eagle Ford in Texas, has increased waste of natural gas through flaring, venting, and leaking.

WORC’s new report, The Flaring Boom, examines the causes and effects of flaring, venting, and leaking of natural gas by examining efforts to curtail these wasteful practices in Alaska, Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming.

“Flaring lowers quality of life in oil-producing communities through increased air pollution, deprives royalty payments to those owning the rights to the natural gas, and contributes to climate change,” said Donald Nelson, a rancher from Keene, N.D., and Chair of WORC’s Oil and Gas Campaign Team.

Nelson has 30 to 40 flares on his ranch. “It’s easy to count them at night,” he said.

• Read more and download The Flaring Boom
• Read WORC's news release

• Northern Plains Resource Council, Political Organizer, Helena, Montana
• WORC & Northern Plains Resource Council, Groundskeeper, Billings, Montana

A snapshot of residents defending their water, land, communities, and families from the harmful effects of booming oil drilling in the Bakken region of northwest North Dakota.