February, in brief
Key news from February:
- Colorado College’s State of the Rockies Project released the 12th annual Conservation in the West poll. The poll surveyed 3,440 registered voters in eight Mountain West states: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. This year, the results show a spike in concern over issues like drought, inadequate water supplies, wildfires, the loss of wildlife habitats and natural spaces, and climate change. 69% of voters are concerned about the future of nature, meaning land, water, air, and wildlife, a notable jump from 61 percent in last year’s poll.
- The Interior Department announced more than $700 million in funding to clean up abandoned mines in 22 states and the Navajo Nation. The funds were included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that was passed last year, and will create jobs closing open mine shafts and treating toxic drainage. The announcement follows a previous announcement by the Biden administration of more than $1 billion to cap abandoned oil and gas wells across the country.
- The United States Senate unanimously approved legislation to establish the Amache National Historic Site in Colorado on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the U.S. government’s forced internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.
- The Biden administration said it found “significant deficiencies” in a Trump-era environmental analysis of a mining road that would cut through wilderness and Indigenous territory in northwest Alaska. The construction of Ambler Road would bring 211 miles of new road through one of the largest roadless areas in the country. The Interior Department said in a statement that the road proposal — which includes about 50 miles of Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service land — would cross the traditional homelands of Alaska Native communities including the Koyukon, Tanana Athabascans and Iñupiat peoples.
- The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service announced next year’s fees for public lands grazing, a paltry $1.35 per animal unit month, the lowest allowable by law and far below rates charged on private lands. According to reporting by High Country News, while inflation may be at a 40-year high, the real cost of grazing permits is lower than it was 40 years ago. Over those four decades, grazing rates have ranged from $1.35 to $2.31, with the highest rates charged in 1981. If that fee had merely kept up with inflation, it would be $7.61 in 2022, providing much needed revenue to taxpayers and rangeland improvement programs.
- A federal judge restored protections for gray wolves across much of the United States, overturning a last minute decision by the Trump administration to remove them from the Endangered Species List. The decision comes as hunters have decimated wolf populations throughout the country. This year alone, hunters killed more than 20% of Yellowstone’s iconic wolves as they wandered outside of park boundaries, eliminating one of the park’s wolf packs entirely. Last year, Wisconsin hunters killed at least 216 wolves in just 60 hours, far exceeding the state’s quotas and enraging local tribes, which consider wolves sacred.
- Twenty five of the outdoor industry’s biggest brands (including Patagonia, REI, and The North Face) announced they will not attend the Outdoor Retailer trade show if it is moved from Denver to Salt Lake City, citing Utah’s poor record on protecting public lands. The brands made their views known in a press release published by the Conservation Alliance, calling out Utah as “a state that leads the fight against designated national monuments and public lands.”
- A report from the Interior Department Inspector General (IG) found that former secretary Ryan Zinke misused his official position, violated his ethical obligations, and did not comply with his duty of candor when negotiating with a developer about a potential real estate project and brewpub in Whitefish, Montana. Center for Western Priorities Executive Director Jennifer Rokala said in a statement, “The Inspector General just confirmed what we’ve known all along — corruption was rampant in the Trump administration. Self-dealing like this was par for the course. Ryan Zinke only got fired because he got caught.”
- A federal judge’s recent invalidation of the Biden administration’s social cost of carbon metric is having some unintended effects — including a second oil and gas leasing pause. The ruling resulted from a case brought by Republican attorneys general that argued raising the cost of carbon to $51 per ton would hurt fossil fuel production on federal public lands. Ironically, the ruling is now delaying a first quarter lease sale in Wyoming since the Biden administration used the $51 per ton figure in its environmental analysis of the 179,000-acre lease sale. The ruling is also expected to slow permitting on a number of other federal projects.
- President Biden jumped head first into the issue of mining reform, announcing the creation of a working group overseen by the Interior Department that will make recommendations on how the administration can update current mining laws — which are 150 years old — to ensure environmental responsibility and equity. The working group will make policy recommendations “for improvements necessary to ensure that new production meets strong environmental and community and Tribal engagement standards during all stages of mine development,” according to an Interior Department news release.
- A federal appeals court has found that a uranium mine less than 10 miles from the south rim of the Grand Canyon can continue to operate, ruling in favor of Canada-based Energy Fuels and against environmental groups and the Havasupai Tribe. The Pinyon Plain Mine, formerly known as the Canyon Mine, is located within a 1,562-square-mile area surrounding the Grand Canyon that was withdrawn from new mining claims for 20 years. But the mining claim held by Energy Fuels at the site pre-dates that withdrawal. The mine has long posed environmental threats to the Grand Canyon and its inhabitants.
What to watch for in March:
- The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is expected to vote on Laura Daniel-Davis’ nomination to serve as the Interior Department’s Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management on March 3rd. Chairman Manchin received criticism for granting Ranking Member Barrasso’s request for a second confirmation hearing on February 8th even though the committee previously held a hearing and voted on her nomination. Daniel-Davis would oversee some of the most vital agencies within the Interior Department, including the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, and the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation, and Enforcement.
- The public comment period for the American Conservation and Stewardship Atlas ends on March 7th. In early January, the Department of the Interior — in coordination with the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality — formally opened a 60-day comment period to inform the Biden administration’s American the Beautiful initiative, with a focus on how the American Conservation and Stewardship Atlas will count progress towards the national 30x30 goal.
- March is women’s history month, a great time to reflect on the important conservation leadership shown by women throughout history.
Best Reads of the Month
Former Patagonia CEO on the outdoor industry’s environmentalism: “We’re being too nice”
Study: Oil firms’ climate claims are greenwashing
Quiz: How well do you know Biden’s environmental track record?
Study: Western drought is worst in 12 centuries
Prayer run protests Oak Flat copper mine in Arizona
What states stand to gain if Biden hikes oil and gas royalty rates
‘No better troops.’ The 1896 ride of the Buffalo Soldiers through Yellowstone National Park
Offshore wind lease sale brings in $1.5 billion in one day
Report: “No harm, no foul” doesn’t exist in oil and gas leasing
Wilderness-quality lands are three times less likely to be managed for protection when oil and gas leases overlap
A new report from the Center for Western Priorities, Wilderness Workshop, and the Colorado Wildlands Project finds that rampant speculative leasing of public lands by oil and gas companies has put pristine landscapes at risk across the West.
The first-of-its kind analysis looked at the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) resource management plans (RMPs) across the West. It found that lands with wilderness-quality characteristics are three times less likely to be managed to protect those wilderness characteristics when that land overlaps with oil and gas leases, even if those leases aren’t producing oil.
The findings underscore the need for comprehensive reform of the oil and gas leasing system, which has not been updated in decades. The full report and policy recommendations, including maps showing areas at risk, are online now.
READ: The creation of a massive California wildlife corridor & the expansion of a Texas wildlife refuge
The two latest additions to CWP’s Postcards campaign
The Center for Western Priorities shared two new Postcards about the creation of the Frank and Joan Randall Preserve in California’s Tehachapi Mountains, and the expansion of the San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge on Texas’ gulf coast.
The newly established Frank and Joan Randall Preserve will cover 112 square miles, linking together a patchwork of protected and unprotected lands across the southern Sierra Nevada and the Tehachapi Mountains in California. The area within the preserve is considered some of the most significant in North America because it will help complete a network of connected lands between Canada and Mexico, facilitating the movement and survival of several wildlife species. Read the blog to learn more about The Nature Conservancy’s work with private landowners, California state officials, and philanthropists that led to the creation of this critically important corridor for biodiversity.
Read about the acquisition of almost 5,000 acres along the Texas coast to the San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge, a vital stopover for migrating neotropical birds. The McNeill-Peach Creek Unit, as the acquired property is known, contains some of the best remaining forested wetlands adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico, known as the “Columbia Bottomlands.” This habitat once covered over a thousand square miles of floodplain forest along the Brazos, San Bernard, and Colorado Rivers. Today, there is just 150 square miles of Columbia Bottomlands forest that is not impacted by agriculture and development. Learn about the decades-long efforts to expand the refuge and the significance of Columbia Bottomlands habitat from a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employee.
To learn more about the Postcards campaign and to read, listen, or watch other stories, please visit www.RoadTo30.org/postcards. More postcards are on the way, so check back soon!
American oil companies cynically try to profit off the Russian invasion
Arguments for more drilling don’t add up when Europe is “doubling down on renewables”
The Washington Times uses bogus numbers to misrepresent 30x30
How much of America is really protected?
You’ve probably heard Indigenous land acknowledgements before at events or conferences. But is there a right way and a wrong way to acknowledge Indigenous land? And how can we make sure they’re not just window dressing? Rosie Thunderchief, an Indigenous woman based in Albuquerque, New Mexico who is descended from multiple tribes joins Kate and Aaron on The Landscape to discuss how land acknowledgements can create space for healing and to provide guidance for coming up with land acknowledgements of your own.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the Colorado River Compact, an agreement between seven Western states that determines how the river’s water is shared. To celebrate, we talked to reporter Luke Runyon, who covered the Colorado River extensively as a reporter for KUNC, a public radio station based in Greeley, Colorado.
Luke takes us behind the scenes of his 1,400 mile trip from a cattle ranch in western Colorado to the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation in southwest Arizona — completed in 10 days — and reflects on what he saw as well as the future of the Colorado River. He also touches on negotiations over how the river’s water is shared between states and tribes that began in 2021 and are set to conclude in an update to the Colorado River Compact in 2026.
Quote of the month
“The industry’s business actions, political demands, and charitable giving simply don’t match the urgency and magnitude of the climate crisis. We should be the loudest advocates for protecting 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030, but we’re not. We have this incredible economic might, we create more jobs than the oil and gas industry, and yet outdoor companies and affiliate groups have been largely mute on the climate crisis and hesitant to push on local, state, and federal governments. The time for backdoor diplomacy is over. We have this giant stick — our economic might — and we act like we’re carrying a toothpick.”
— Former Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario, Outside Business Journal
Picture this
@usinterior
For a short time in February — if the conditions are perfect — Horsetail Falls at @YosemiteNPS appears to be set ablaze when the sun’s light hits the waterfall at just the right angle, illuminating the water and mist to a brilliant orange fiery glow. Photo by Nikhil Shahi (sharetheexperience.org)
For more information, visit WesternPriorities.org or RoadTo30.org. Sign up for Look West to get daily public lands and energy news sent to your inbox, or subscribe to our podcast, The Landscape.
