Developing the California Desert
The Trump administration is poised to roll back land and wildlife protections in the name of “energy dominance”
For more than two decades, Congress and past administrations have worked to protect millions of acres in the California desert. From Joshua Tree and Death Valley National Parks to the Mojave National Preserve in between, protected public lands have conserved one of the largest intact landscapes in the United States, home to bighorn sheep, desert tortoise, golden eagles, and countless other species. But after decades of progress, the Interior Department is set to roll back hard-won protections in the name of energy development, making the California desert just the latest casualty of the Trump administration’s push for “energy dominance.”
It has taken generations of advocacy to ensure the California desert will be conserved for future generations. After years of work behind the scenes and in Congress, President Bill Clinton signed the California Desert Protection Act into law in 1994, converting Joshua Tree and Death Valley from national monuments into national parks, establishing the Mojave National Preserve, and establishing more than 7.6 million acres of new wilderness areas.
In 2016, after eight years of planning and consultation with local communities, industry, and conservationists, the Obama administration added to this legacy by implementing the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP). This comprehensive land management plan sought to balance conservation and wildlife protections with recreation and renewable energy development.
The final DRECP identified 4.2 million acres for increased conservation protections, adding areas to the Bureau of Land Management’s network of National Conservation Lands and establishing Areas of Critical Environmental Concern. The new designations ensured connectivity for multiple wildlife corridors and protected dozens of sensitive species and their habitats. Additionally, the plan identified 3.5 million acres of recreation areas to be managed for a range of uses, including off-highway motor vehicle use, hiking, camping, and rockhounding. Lastly, the DRECP identified nearly 900,000 acres of public lands for renewable energy development, including 388,000 acres of Development Focus Areas — lands with high renewable energy potential, transmission access, and the ability to avoid or mitigate significant ecological impacts.
While the plan took years to develop and implement, the DRECP showed that it was possible to bring together community stakeholders and figure out where to prioritize conservation, recreation, and energy development over a vast landscape. As with any compromise, no single stakeholder got everything they wanted, but in a particularly litigious era, it is especially notable that no lawsuits were filed against the plan when it was finalized.
Now, the Trump administration is set to blow up the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan. On February 1, 2018 — less than 17 months after the plan was finalized — the Bureau of Land Management announced it would consider changes to the DRECP “in response to President Trump’s order to review regulations that unnecessarily impede energy development.” That same executive order has been used by the Interior Department to roll back dozens of land and wildlife protections, all to boost the drilling and mining industries.
Notably, the BLM’s announcement asked for comments “on how land designations identified in the plan” might impact renewable energy development. While this may sound minor, it is a direct call for industries to target places added to BLM’s network of National Conservation Lands and identified as Areas of Critical Environmental Concern and asked that those protections be rolled back. Around the desert, these designations were conveyed to protect lands with nationally significant cultural, ecological, and scientific values, as well as places that need special management to protect critical ecosystems and wildlife. Rolling back those protections would threaten these ecosystems and enable the fragmentation of such an intact landscape. It is unclear exactly when changes to the DRECP will be formally unveiled, but such an announcement could occur within the next few months.
The DRECP is not the first collaborative, compromise land management plan that the Trump Interior Department has eviscerated or eliminated. The agency recently gutted landmark sage-grouse conservation plans, which strived to balance development with conserving key habitat, in favor of a drill-everywhere approach. Similarly, the administration eliminated Master Leasing Plans, a commonsense approach to pull communities together and figure out which lands to lease for oil and gas development and which to prioritize for recreation and conservation.
There has been a clear theme in all of these decisions — political officials in the Interior Department believe our public lands are for energy development, not for conserving for future generations or even trying to balance the two. These priorities have led the agency to shrink national monuments in Utah, propose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and auction leases to drill on millions of acres of public lands, including on the doorsteps of our national parks and monuments. This administration’s track record of shredding land and wildlife protections is strong and consistent, and unfortunately for the California desert, its breathtaking landscapes are now in the crosshairs.
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