State of Interior Part II: This Land Actually Is Our Land
America’s public lands are the envy of the world because of their expansive size, beauty and abundance, and because of our nation’s foresight in setting aside places where people, nature and the public interest come first. Beginning with President Lincoln preserving Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley in 1864, Americans have recognized the diverse and profound social, ecological and economic benefits derived from public lands, including clean water, wildlife and recreation. Yet now those treasured lands, including protected areas and crucial wildlife habitats, are suffering an unprecedented existential threat from the current administration and its ideological push for “energy dominance” on America’s public lands.
The Department of the Interior stewards over 1.2 billion acres of federal lands and waters. As with other public lands, Interior holdings vary in their specific missions, from the National Wildlife Refuge System, dedicated to the conservation of wildlife and habitat, to the National Park System’s preservation of landscapes with extraordinary scenic, natural, and historic value, to the Bureau of Land Management’s sustainable, multiple use mandate. All Americans benefit from the diverse portfolio of lands and waters managed by Interior.
A Decree of Energy Dominance
But longstanding public lands management principles of sustainability, conservation and adherence to science are being jettisoned by President Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. The administration has asserted a singular focus in administering our public domain that would enshrine one use — industrial-scale fossil fuel development — as the dominant, reckless, and shortsighted purpose of public lands and waters.
In March 2017, President Trump issued Executive Order 13783 calling on all federal agencies to review regulations and policies that may “burden” energy production. Secretary Zinke simultaneously issued Secretarial Order 3349 calling for a similar review within the Interior Department, targeting rules governing hydraulic fracturing (fracking), methane waste prevention in drilling operations, and coal, oil and gas development on public lands, including within national wildlife refuges. In July, Secretary Zinke issued another order calling for the “streamlining” of oil and gas permitting processes, part of a larger effort to expedite fossil fuel extraction on public lands.
Last April, President Trump signed an executive order directing Secretary Zinke to review national monuments designated under the Antiquities Act since 1996 that may be barriers to energy dominance. Secretary Zinke turned a blind eye to his stewardship obligations and dutifully followed his boss’s orders, submitting to the president recommendations to downsize and reduce protections for 10 national monuments and marine national monuments. In December, the president did the unthinkable, slashing protections for sacred and high value conservation lands in Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah. Monuments from Maine to California, and both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans remain in the crosshairs.
As is evident with his attack on marine monuments, Secretary Zinke’s assaults are not limited to public lands, and includes public waters that are home to sensitive marine resources. In April 2017 President Trump signed the “America-First Offshore Energy Strategy” order, which among other things overturned President Obama’s protection of federal waters in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans from oil drilling. Secretary Zinke followed up the President’s order with Secretarial Order 3350, which took aim at “burdensome” policies designed to protect marine resources, including reversing policy for permitting seismic surveys under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
In October Secretary Zinke announced the largest ever offshore oil and gas drilling lease sale, opening 77 million acres for sale in the Gulf of Mexico. And then just last month he declared that nearly the entire Outer Continental Shelf would be open for development, including Arctic, Pacific, Gulf and Atlantic waters. The proposal triggered strong pushback from affected states, including from the Governor of Florida, who was infamously granted an exception from Secretary Zinke’s directive.
Alaska Under Siege
In many ways, Alaska’s majestic and bountiful public lands and waters symbolize the unique character of America’s public domain. But for Secretary Zinke — who infamously declared last June that Alaska public lands were “open for business” — protected and other natural areas in the state are simply impediments to development. Secretary Zinke launched his Alaska public lands “sell out” with Secretarial Order 3352, which attempts to “avoid regulatory burdens” and grease the skids for ramped up oil drilling within the National Petroleum Reserve — Alaska (NPR-A), the largest unit of public lands in the nation that is home to caribou and polar bears, among other Artic wildlife. Conservation organizations recently challenged a December 2017 NPR-A lease sale of over 10 million acres for violating National Environmental Policy Act requirements to assess leasing impacts to fish, wildlife and other resources, demonstrating that attempts to sidestep environmental law in a race to drill will be met with strong opposition.
After a year of behind-the-scenes scheming, Secretary Zinke signed an agreement last month to trade away wilderness wetlands to allow construction of a road through the heart of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. The Interior’s backroom deal with King Cove Corporation overturned numerous decisions by previous Secretaries of Interior, removing federal lands from public ownership, stripping them of wilderness and refuge protections and threatening important populations of imperiled species and crucial coastal habitat for iconic wildlife, including brown bears, caribou, salmon and hundreds of species of migratory birds.
And in December, Republicans in Congress gave Secretary Zinke an assist in his ongoing mission to pursue economic development over conservation stewardship in vital wildlife habitat in Alaska by passing legislation authorizing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Secretary Zinke, who had already been pursuing administrative actions to enable drilling in the refuge, responded with gusto, earmarking millions of dollars to launch and expedite the development of a leasing program in the crown jewel of America’s refuge system.
Selling out the Sagebrush Sea
Secretary Zinke’s rampage to dismantle the framework of public lands law and policy is not limited to pillaging protected areas for oil, gas and minerals and other development; he has also set his sights on rules governing wildlife conservation on public lands. In the American West, the conservation status of greater sage-grouse is the best measure of how well we are stewarding the Sagebrush Sea, the largest ecosystem in the lower 48. Imperfect, yet hard-won Obama-era sage-grouse conservation plans established a tenuous truce in the divisive battles to balance and sustain sage-grouse and other western public lands values on the high desert. But Secretary Zinke, with complete disregard for the years of investment in this collaborative effort, has gone on the attack. The administration is now reconsidering conservation measures for sage-grouse and hundreds of other species on more than 60 million acres of public lands.
Secretary Zinke is attempting to rewrite longstanding traditions of public lands stewardship, one of the hallmarks of our democracy. The idea that public lands, waters and wildlife themselves are a “burden” to energy development could only be conceived by someone completely out of touch with reality. This agenda is terribly unpopular and will be met with fierce resistance from the American people.
In the third part of our series, we will discuss imperiled species and how the Department of the Interior has failed to support the Endangered Species Act and other landmark wildlife laws.
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