The canvassers are backed by the oil industry in its quest to stop a new law that bans wells near residential areas and imposes new environmental controls. If petition circulators succeed in gathering enough signatures, the law would be blocked until the 2024 election.
The vast majority of the declaration’s signatories have no experience in climate science at all, and the group behind the message—the Climate Intelligence Foundation, or CLINTEL—has well-documented ties to oil money and fossil fuel interest groups.
A petition filed by a Los Alamos worker has been in limbo for 10 years. At the Savannah River Site, a petition has lingered for 11 years. At Sandia National Laboratories, workers have been waiting seven years for a final decision.