December, in brief

Key news from December:

• The Wyoming Board of Land Commissioners, led by Governor Mark Gordon, voted to delay a decision on whether to sell 640 acres of state trust land located within Grand Teton National Park. Megan Degenfelder, one of the board members who voted to delay further action for now, recommended the state begin talks with the Interior department for a potential land exchange. The board said it will revisit a possible sale in fall 2024. “Governor Gordon and the Land Commissioners did the right thing today,” said Center for Priorities Executive Director Jennifer Rokala. “A parcel this important should be open to the public and wildlife. Now the clock is ticking. It’s up to the governor and legislature to ensure this land remains in public hands forever, as part of the national park.”

• A 90-day public comment period on the Interior department's proposed regulations for the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska came to a close. An analysis by the Center for Western Priorities found that 88 percent of commenters encouraged the Bureau of Land Management to adopt the regulations as written or further limit oil and gas drilling in the Arctic. Just 12 percent of comments encouraged BLM to significantly weaken or scrap the rule. The proposed NPR-A regulations would enhance protections for Alaska Native subsistence uses throughout the Reserve, especially within the Special Areas identified in the plan. Over 40 Indigenous communities harvest caribou, birds, and fish within the NPR-A, with many communities subsisting primarily from food harvested from the Reserve. The rule would not affect existing oil and gas operations in the Reserve.

• The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a business meeting to consider several land protection bills, some of which have been considered many times in previous years but have repeatedly died due to gridlock and dysfunction in Congress. Notably, the committee voted to advance the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy (CORE) Act, which would protect 420,000 acres of public land in Colorado through new wilderness areas and recreation and conservation management areas. The committee also passed the Dolores River National Conservation Area and Special Management Area Act, which would designate 68,000 acres in the southern portion of the Dolores River corridor in Colorado as a National Conservation Area and Special Management Area. 

• New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard signed an executive order last week to prohibit new oil and natural gas leasing for the next 20 years on state land surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a World Heritage Site that is sacred to Native Americans. Garcia Richard's latest order extends a temporary moratorium that she signed when she took office in 2019. It will cover more than 113 square miles of state trust land within a checkerboard of private, state, federal and tribal holdings in northwestern New Mexico. “The greater Chaco landscape is one of the most special places in the world, and it would be foolish not to do everything in our power to protect it,” Garcia Richard said in a statement.

• The U.S. Forest Service announced protections for nearly 25 million acres it oversees with the first national plan to protect old-growth forests from commercial logging. The plan would prohibit cutting down old-growth trees, most of which are well over 100 years old and store vast amounts of carbon as well as provide essential habitat for hundreds of wildlife species. The announcement stems from an executive order President Joe Biden signed directing the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to inventory mature and old-growth forests across the nation and craft policies that protect them. The agencies found that more than 32 million acres of old-growth forests remain on public lands in the United States.

What to watch for in January:

• Will President Biden designate another new national monument?
• Will the BLM release a final draft of the Public Lands Rule?

From the Center for Western Priorities:

How to protect all of the Dolores Canyons

In a Denver Post op-ed, Center for Western Priorities Executive Director Jennifer Rokala makes the case that Colorado legislators should champion the proposed Dolores Canyons National Monument. The Dolores Canyons area is home to a rich ecosystem of plants and wildlife—including native fish, river otters, beavers, black bears, mountain lions, bighorn sheep, and songbirds. It is also a lifeline for the Southwestern United States, connecting to the Colorado River system and sustaining the lives of 40 million people. For over a decade, community leaders, conservationists, river guides, and local business leaders have attempted to preserve the Dolores River watershed, one of the largest contiguous landscapes in the state.

A bipartisan bill introduced by Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, and Congresswoman Lauren Boebert would designate the southern portion of the Dolores River corridor in Montezuma, Dolores, and San Miguel counties as a National Conservation Area and Special Management Area. However, the legislation leaves out the Dolores Canyons in Mesa and Montrose counties, an area that contains the largest and most biodiverse contiguous swath of unprotected public lands in Colorado. A national monument for the Dolores Canyons in the north would complement the proposed legislation in the south.

While passing the bill ought to be a no-brainer for congressional leaders, particularly those in the West, Colorado’s elected leaders have an opportunity to think bigger by asking President Biden to protect the Dolores Canyons area in Mesa and Montrose counties as a national monument. The proposed Dolores Canyons National Monument would be wildly popular among Colorado voters, according to a 2023 poll of Colorado voters that showed support from 84 percent of respondents, spanning the political spectrum and including 93 percent of Democrats, 85 percent of Independents, and 71 percent of Republicans.

“The creation of new monuments is about invigorating our natural heritage, transcending political divides, and ensuring outdoor spaces will be here for future generations to enjoy,” said Rokala in the op-ed. “President Biden has already designated five new national monuments since taking office, including the Camp Hale–Continental Divide National Monument. Yet Colorado and the rest of the West deserve more.”

Road to 30 Postcards: San Gabriel Mountains National Monument Expansion

In the latest addition to the Center for Western Priorities' Road to 30: Postcards campaign, a blog post by Outreach and Campaigns Associate Sterling Homard highlights the proposed expansion of California’s San Gabriel Mountains National Monument. The proposed expansion would add 109,000 acres to the national monument, protecting areas culturally significant to the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians and providing environmental justice to millions around Greater Los Angeles.

The San Gabriel Mountains National Monument is “a national monument that I would dare say is the only one that has almost 20 million people immediately adjacent to it,” says Belèn Bernal, executive director of Nature for All, a diverse coalition of local, regional, and national organizations who work together to advocate for the expansion of the national monument. Nature for All is calling on President Biden to use his authority under the Antiquities Act to expand the national monument.

Hear from Bernal as she talks about the environmental justice that the monument expansion would bring by providing equitable green and open space accessibility for millions of urban residents in Los Angeles County. Also hear from Rudy Ortega, president of the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians, as he recalls visiting significant cultural sites on the landscape at a young age with his family. According to President Ortega, expanding San Gabriel Mountains National Monument would protect sacred sites that are currently vulnerable to destruction from development and visitation without cultural awareness.

The monument expansion would also help President Biden make progress toward his goal of protecting 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030 (30x30). Read the blog post to learn about the broad support for the expansion, including over 50,000 community members and numerous elected officials, all of whom are calling on President Biden to expand the national monument.

Kate and Aaron are joined by Dr. Dominick DellaSala, Chief Scientist at Wild Heritage, a project of the Earth Island Institute. We had Dr. DellaSala on the Landscape back in June to talk about the Biden administration’s efforts to protect old growth forests. At the time, the U.S. Forest Service had just released data that it found more than 32 million acres of old-growth forests remain on public lands in the United States. The administration took a big step to protect those trees this week, with the announcement that it plans to ban commercial logging in all old growth forests on federal land. Dr. DellaSala takes us behind the headlines to discuss what that ban actually entails.

Kate and Aaron are joined by Rachel Morgan, author of Sins of the Shovel: Looting, Murder, and the Evolution of American Archaeology. Rachel is an archaeologist based near Washington, DC, and her book, which was published last month, is largely focused on the Southwest. She gives a detailed account of the Wetherill family, which settled in southwest Colorado in the 1800s and explored Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, and Grand Gulch extensively. She also talks about how legal and scientific transformations have given rise to the science we know today as archaeology.

The salmon crisis in the Yukon River

Washington Post
 

Study: Western U.S. wildfires undo 2 decades of air quality progress

Axios
 

Opinion: Don't be fooled by Mike Lee's HOUSES Act

Salt Lake Tribune
 

At Tribal Nations summit, Biden pledges to ‘heal the wrongs of the past’ and ‘move forward’

Associated Press
 

The fate of the West’s water rests on the shoulders of this 27-year-old

Politico
 

The race to save the Great Salt Lake

Mother Jones
 

Who gets the water in California? Whoever gets there first

New York Times
 

America's only cobalt mine closed before it even opened

NPR
 

First five gray wolves reintroduced in Colorado

Colorado Sun
 

Report: Putting a price tag on oil well cleanup

Public Citizen

“It’s not just about land. It’s about our identity within, it’s about our future generations. And right now, Alaska is thawing four times faster than the rest of the world, and we are seeing drastic changes, and drilling is the last thing that we need there.”

—Bernadette Demientieff, Gwich’in Steering Committee Executive Director, KTUU