Climate groups ask about the controversial Black Friday report, which they doubt and want to know more about. Of interest to these groups is the oil and gas leasing part of the report. They contend that the US Department of the Interior (DOI) did not do everything they had to do to lessen the effects on the climate.
US Department of the Interior Sued
The group's target is to sue the DOI to disclose more data from the November Review, according to CNN. It is not doing enough to mitigate the climatic dilemma.
The Western Environmental Law Center represents the Montana Environmental Information Center, Center for Biological Diversity, and WildEarth Guardians. These groups moved to invoke the Freedom of Information Act to get the documents of the feds used to make the report, cited ABC 57.
They received the records from DOI bureaus and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in two responses, although they were redacted, noted Tahrir News.
Barbara Chillcott, a senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center, remarked that the DOI redacted about 75 percent of the information from the documents.
A year ago, the Department of the Interior published its long-awaited evaluation of drilling on public lands and seas called the Black Friday report. The report recommended that leasing fees be brought up and that environmental issues by climate groups be taken into account when making leasing judgments.
However, the report largely avoided the issue of climate change. It did not recommend a moratorium on new oil and gas leasing, a campaign promise made by President Joe Biden.
Tailor McKinnon, a senior public lands campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the climate problem is everyone's issue, and public agencies must deal with it.
"We want to see communications, we want to see those drafts, we want the public to be able to understand why and how the administration backpedaled from its climate promise in federal oil and gas leasing," he added. The pro-green activists think the report has not done enough to shed light.
Chillcott remarked that the document did not address the need for climate change and that the department didn't follow the Biden administration's orders on tackling the climate crisis. More should be done to make the report better, and they want more substantial actions.
DOI's Response To The Issue
An Interior Department representative refused to comment yet on the lawsuit filed. Thirty days is the time for a response to the filed complaint by the group. Chillcott hopes that US Attorney General Merrick Garland recently authorized new FOIA recommendations imploring agencies to be more straightforward. Environmentalists might very well ultimately prevail.
The lawsuit might take some time to be decided on by the courts; if they can win against the department of the interior. A lawyer for the activist environmental group commented that the filed suit should make agencies respond to their inquiries. However, it might take longer as the DOI is not in a hurry to do anything.
Most climate groups call the Black Friday report too secretive and should be more transparent as it is relevant to the President's promise last election time that Trump tore up in the debates.
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