News Clips

“Two local environmental groups joined a lawsuit filed last week against the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior over recent directives that opened up parklands nationwide for the use of electric bikes. The suit alleges that the agencies skipped necessary rule-making and environmental analysis steps, in violation of numerous federal laws. Attorneys...

“This summer, the National Park Service came out with a policy allowing electric bicycles in the same places as traditional bikes. A new federal lawsuit is challenging that rule. Last week, the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, led a coalition of conservation groups in alleging that the NPS’s e-bike policy violates several...

“WASHINGTON – Bureau of Land Management employees in Washington have until this week to decide whether to accept a transfer out West – a move that some advocates and former bureau managers see as an attempt at “dismantling” the agency. Notices went out Nov. 12 to 159 workers who will be affected by the bureau’s...

“WASHINGTON, D.C. (BRAIN) — The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and a coalition of conservation groups are the primary plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the National Park Service for allowing e-bikes on non-motorized trails. Peer charges that Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and Deputy NPS Director P. Daniel Smith regularly met in private with an industry-dominated...

“Thursday is the deadline for Washington, D.C., employees of the Bureau of Land Management to decide if they will take a reassignment out West. Some employees may get extensions. The agency is moving about 300 positions out of the nation’s capital, including 39 to Arizona and 27 to Grand Junction, Colorado, which it’s calling a...

“A lawsuit filed to overturn the Interior Department’s move to expand e-Bike access in the National Park System also takes aim at the Trump administration’s preference for appointing “acting” officials rather than submitting nominees for Senate confirmation. The 31-page filing, made by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility with three other conservation groups, also charges that...

“Marin County environmental groups have challenged a recent federal directive to allow electric bikes on national park bike trails. The lawsuit filed late Thursday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by the Marin Conservation League, the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin, the Point Reyes Station-based Save Our Seashore and five other...

“The nation’s top national parks official said Wednesday he was in the dark about President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to use national parks rangers to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border. National Park Service Deputy Director David Vela, who has served as acting director for the National Park Service since Oct. 1, told lawmakers during a U.S....

“A coalition of advocacy groups sued the National Park Service today in an attempt to restore a ban on e-bikes in national parks. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is a response to an order signed in August by Interior Secretary David Bernhardt. It required the park service to...

“Another push is underway at the state level to end subsidies for Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) and other county school systems or agencies that install synthetic turf playing fields instead of maintaining natural grass fields, fields which do not off-gas carcinogenic material or whose surface temperatures do not exceed 150 degrees on hot days...