Carl Heilman II

🚨 URGENT: The Senate votes Monday on a bill that would make permits on our public lands nearly impossible for ANY future president to undo. And Trump's admin is still handing them out on those very lands right now. They're calling it the permitting bill, and it's a sneaky one. It's far worse than the name sounds. Any permit still in effect on September 16, 2026 gets shielded, no matter who issued it or when. Older permits count too, even decades old, if they're still active. So does every one Trump's admin signs from here on. The thing I want you to understand is this. Federal oil and gas leases don't expire as long as they keep producing. A lease signed in the 70s or 80s is still in effect today if it's still producing. Earthjustice warns this bill makes leases like that "virtually impossible to overturn." To change or cancel a permit, a future admin would have to prove it by "clear and convincing evidence." Only five reasons count: 1. A court orders it. 2. The permit holder broke the law. 3. The permit was obtained through fraud. 4. The permit holder asks for it. 5. An urgent threat to life, property, or national security the original review missed. If none apply, the permit stays. Locked in. Trumped in. If a judge finds the government botched the environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act, the judge can order a redo. But the judge can't cancel the permit or stop the project. The bulldozers keep running during the redo. Tribes don't get a say until AFTER agencies have already made up their minds about work on their ancestral lands and sacred sites. Two Democrats, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), top Democrat on the Senate Energy Committee, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), signed on to the bill Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) introduced, with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). Voters just handed Democrats Congress. Two of them put their names on a bill that locks in Trump's permits anyway. This sitting Congress is trying to push it through Monday. Please call your members of Congress today. We don't have much time. I've tagged the four senators behind this. Let them know how you feel about it by saying no to the bill to your MOC. Thank you for standing up for our public lands. #DemsUnited 📷 Hart Van Denburg / CPR News

Trump wants to open the Olympic Peninsula's ancient forests and wild salmon rivers to logging. In August, we know the admin moved to scrap the Roadless Rule. It protects about 45 million acres of national forest. Today I want to talk about one of those areas: the Olympic National Forest in Washington State, and some of the rivers that start there. One is the Humptulips River, a top-ten trophy fishing river in Washington. Its headwaters sit in the Moonlight Dome Roadless Area. Another is the Quilcene Roadless Area. It feeds the drinking water supply for Port Townsend. These are ancient forests, and their rivers are home to wild salmon. Scrapping the rule means logging and new roads. And this isn't the first try. In 2025, budget drafts listed 300,000 acres of Olympic National Forest as eligible for sale. That was removed. The Wild Olympics Campaign, a coalition working to protect the Olympic Peninsula's forests and rivers, says these areas could be open to industrial development in 2027. More than 1 million people told the Forest Service to keep the Roadless Rule. The administration is barreling ahead anyway. And this isn't just one forest. Roadless areas across the country are at risk. There's a fix for this area. The Wild Olympics Act would protect these lands permanently, by law. Washington Senator Patty Murray first introduced it in 2012. About 800 tribes, businesses and groups back it. Now sportsmen and lawmakers are racing to pass it by the end of 2026. If it doesn't pass by then, it dies with this Congress and has to start over. Sign the petition in the first reply. Washingtonians need to call Senators Murray and Cantwell. And if you have any friends in the state, please share this with them as well. It's imperative we reach everyone there. #DemsUnited