Environmentalists challenged this week the Biden administration’s go-ahead for a big open pit lithium mine in Nevada that impinges on the habitat of the endangered Tiehm’s buckwheat.

Hot on the heels of the administration’s green light for the Rhyolite Ridge project , the Center for Biological Diversity and several allied organizations claim in the lawsuit filed Thursday that federal agencies failed to account for the “significant and irreparable impacts“ that could result from the mine proposed by Ioneer.

Donnelly added that “we need lithium for the crucial transition to renewable energy, but the government can’t break the law and drive species to extinction to get it.”