Look West: Public lands and energy news from the Center for Western Priorities
** Biden's third year on public lands showed great improvement. Can he stick the landing?
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Friday, January 19, 2024
President Biden establishes the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni—Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument in northern Arizona on August 8, 2023. Credit: U.S. Department of the Interior ([link removed])
President Joe Biden made substantial progress toward his conservation goals in 2023 and is on the precipice of being able to claim he is the most consequential first-term conservation president since Teddy Roosevelt, according to a new progress report ([link removed]) from the Center for Western Priorities.
In the third year of his first term, President Biden made significant progress toward his administration’s goal of protecting 30 percent of the country’s lands and waters by 2030. He protected more than 1.5 million acres of public land using the Antiquities Act and made use of important tools like mineral withdrawals and land management plans to protect millions of acres of public land from mining, oil and gas drilling, and logging.
The report ([link removed]) also notes that while the Biden administration accomplished a host of pro-conservation reforms in 2023, it also sold a significant amount of public land out to Big Oil through its approval ([link removed]) of the Willow Project. The project, which opponents describe as a “carbon bomb” in the Arctic, could produce 180,000 barrels of oil a year.
“President Biden made an epic comeback from last year in terms of protecting public lands,” said ([link removed]) Center for Western Priorities Deputy Director Aaron Weiss. “The administration is going into this year with major conservation momentum, but the president’s public lands legacy depends on whether his administration is able to execute important rulemakings and whether the president himself is willing to pick up his pen and protect over a million more acres of public land.”
** Quick hits
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Progress report: President Biden’s third year on public lands
Westwise ([link removed])
Utah lawmakers look to outdated law to prevent BLM from closing roads for conservation
Salt Lake Tribune ([link removed])
Colorado pledges to play nice as Nebraska plows ahead on $628M canal at the state line
Colorado Sun ([link removed])
Supreme Court appears ready to erode Chevron doctrine
E&E News ([link removed]) | Axios ([link removed]) | CBS News ([link removed])
Uranium mining resumes near Grand Canyon, but recent monument designation prevents new claims
Grist ([link removed])
California farms dried up a river for months. Nobody stopped them
New York Times ([link removed])
Drought conditions spread throughout New Mexico in early 2024
Carlsbad Current-Argus ([link removed])
Senate committee OKs carbon tariff, mining cleanup bills
E&E News ([link removed])
** Quote of the day
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” The stage is set to make 2024 one of the most consequential years in public lands history. The question is whether President Biden is bold enough to fulfill his own vision.”
—Aaron Weiss ([link removed]) , Center for Western Priorities Deputy Director
** Picture This
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@usinterior ([link removed])
The male Cassin’s finch sports a red crown and lives in the mountains and conifer forests of the West, from Washington down to Arizona and New Mexico. They are often seen in small flocks spending their day eating seeds, fruit and an occasional insect.
Photo by Ann Schonlau / NPS
#birding ([link removed]) #birds ([link removed]) #publiclands ([link removed])
Alt Text: A red male Cassin’s finch with a red crown is perched on a snow-covered branch in the winter.
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