Ecuador | To drill, or not, in Yasuní NP: Binding referendum set for Sunday

Should Ecuador continue drilling in one of the most biodiverse corners of the Amazon or should it keep the oil underground? On Sunday, its people will decide in a binding referendum that landed on the ballot after a decade-long fight by young activists.

As the world faces twin ecological crises of climate change and ecosystem collapse, the vote will determine what one country’s citizens are willing to give up to protect the planet.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/climate/ecuador-yasuni-drilling-referendum.html

Utah appeals dismissal of lawsuit aimed at curbing Biden's NMon authority

Utah's attorney general, indicating he's willing to eventually approach the U.S. Supreme Court over President Biden's boundary revisions to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, has appealed a lower court's ruling against the state.

Late last week U.S. District Judge David Nuffer said the state was in no position to second guess Biden's decision to restore the monuments' original boundaries as set by Presidents Clinton and Obama.

https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2023/08/utah-appeals-district-courts-ruling-national-monument-boundaries

Federal court rejects suit that would have cut haze in NPs in Wyoming, South Dakota, Utah

DENVER (CN) — The Clean Air Act gives Wyoming wide discretion in designing plans to retrofit small coal-powered plants in efforts to reduce regional haze, the 10th Circuit found in an order published Tuesday that rejected separate critiques filed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and several conservation groups.

Vast swaths of Wyoming are protected as national parks, including Grand Teton and Yellowstone, which sit adjacent to haze-producing coal-powered plants. As mandated by the Clear Air Act, the EPA implemented the 1999 Regional Haze Rule and the 2001 Best Available Retrofit Technology (BART) guidelines directing states to clean up the air, particularly around national parks.

https://www.courthousenews.com/10th-circuit-oks-wyoming-plan-to-retrofit-coal-plants-under-clean-air-act/