Lumber Liquidators, the nation's largest specialty retailer of hardwood flooring, was sentenced by a federal judge earlier this month to five years' probation and more than $13 million in penalties

Busted!

Lumber Liquidators, the nation's largest specialty retailer of hardwood flooring, was sentenced by a federal judge earlier this month to five years' probation and more than $13 million in penalties for smuggling illegal wood products into the U.S., including timber cut from Siberian tiger habitat in Russia, where fewer than 600 of the endangered big cats remain in the wild. The sentence, which caps off a multiyear investigation, includes the largest fine ever issued under the Lacey Act, a landmark environmental law banning the import of illegally sourced timber.

Read more, and thank the Obama administration for enforcing the Lacey Act.

---

Room to Roam

Last December, the U.S. Senate passed the National Bison Legacy Act to designate the North American bison as our national mammal. The bill is still (surprise, surprise) awaiting consideration in the House of Representatives. But just two weeks after the Senate vote, Montana's governor, Steve Bullock, offered a sort of amnesty to bison that stray outside the bound of Yellowstone National Park. Bullock's move isn't without controversy, however.

Find out more.

---

Justice Must Be Served

"The water crisis in Flint, Michigan, is an unmitigated environmental and human health disaster ... and it was entirely avoidable," says Sierra Club President Aaron Mair.

Adds Dave Holtz, chair of the Club's Michigan Chapter: "The people of Flint ... raised the issue over two years ago that there was something wrong with the water."

"This is an environmental justice crisis and should be called out as such," says Leslie Fields, director of the Sierra Club's EJ program. "There are Flints everywhere."

Read more here and here.

---

That Was Then

Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune writes: "Fifty years ago, no one questioned whether it made sense to drill for oil or dig for coal. Extracting any and all fossil fuels was accepted practice because that was the cheapest, easiest way to get energy. And for a while, it worked.

But that was then. Today, as the Interior Department prepares to release a new draft of a five-year plan for oil and gas leases off our coastlines, it's time to recognize how much has changed. This is not 1966 -- or even 2006.

So why does this draft plan read as if the rags-to-oil-rich Beverly Hillbillies were still on the air?"

---

---

---

Epic Film for Epic Occasion

The Sierra Club is proud to support the IMAX film National Parks Adventure, which takes audiences on an off-trail adventure into the nation’s awe-inspiring great outdoors and untamed wilderness. Narrated by Academy Award winner Robert Redford, the film celebrates the 100-year anniversary of the national parks. World-class mountaineer Conrad Anker, adventure photographer Max Lowe, and artist Rachel Pohl hike, climb, and explore their way across Yellowstone, Glacier, Yosemite, Everglades, and Arches National Parks.

Read more from producer Shaun Macgillivray and find out where to see the film when it premieres February 12.

---

---

More Than Just a Pretty Place

The Sierra Club is excited to join the National Park Service in celebrating its centennial this year. To kick things off, Executive Director Michael Brune joined an online panel with National Park Service director Jonathan B. Jarvis, Outdoor Afro founder Rue Mapp, Latino Outdoors founder José González, and Sierra Club Board director Allison Chin. Rather than looking back though, their conversation centered on the future for America's national parks, monuments, and historic places.

Here are Brune's takeaways (as well as a link to watch the full discussion).

---

Celestial Sightings

Hey, early risers (or stay-up-all-nighters), did you know that the five brightest planets in our night sky will all be visible just before sunrise throughout most of February? And all astronomy buffs, regardless of the hours you keep, will want to keep an eye out for the Winter Hexagon, which is formed by the most-visible stars in the winter sky.

Find out when and where to look for these and other heavenly happenings this month.

---

Slash Gas Flaring on Public Lands

The oil and gas industry is profiting from digging up and fracking our public lands. Adding insult to injury, the industry is wasting huge amounts of climate-damaging methane gas, either by venting it into our atmosphere, or burning it off at drilling sites. That's why the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has proposed a set of rules to rein in methane pollution on our public lands.

Thank the Obama administration, and urge the BLM to finalize strong safeguards to protect our climate and public lands.

---

---

Sharks Take a Bite

Most of us have seen footage of sharks maniacally tearing frozen fish or bait fish to bits, but this sort of frenzy is completely artificial. Capturing natural feeding behavior requires seeking out healthy reefs with large shark populations, and having the patience and skill to wait for a feeding event to occur. While documenting coral reefs in French Polynesia in 2013, a team of cinematographers and researchers from the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation learned of a site where grouper aggregate every summer to spawn -- and a large population of grey sharks that feed on them.

View their footage and read more.

---

Don't Like Shark Finning? Then Stop the TPP

Representatives from the United States and 11 other countries just rolled the dice and signed a trade pact that threatens sharks, many species of which are endangered or even critically endangered. The Trans-Pacific Partnership would expand the trade of shark fins and continue the brutal practice of shark finning. But it's far from a done deal. The TPP still needs to be voted on by Congress.

Read more and tell Congress to vote no on the TPP.

---

---