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In its final days, the Trump administration has raced to cement a sweeping range of environmental rollbacks. Last week alone the Interior Department reversed an Obama-era rule to allow oil, gas, and coal companies to skirt royalties owed to taxpayers; cut protections for 3.4 million acres of northern spotted owl habitat to benefit logging companies; expedited approvals for drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; opened 9.7 million acres of public lands in Western Alaska to new drilling and mining; and approved a four-lane highway through Utah’s Red Cliffs National Conservation Area, key habitat for the desert tortoise.
“What we’re seeing right now is a last-ditch, desperate effort by the Trump administration to rubber-stamp as many permits, sign as many contracts and cut as many protected areas as it can to make a mess for the incoming Biden administration,” said Jenny Rowland-Shea, senior policy analyst for public lands at the Center for American Progress.
The task of reversing these damaging policies and instituting plans to conserve public lands will fall on a Biden administration team that is currently being assembled. Yesterday, President-elect Biden announced that Elizabeth Klein would serve as Deputy Interior Secretary. Klein has extensive experience, having served in the Interior Department during both the Obama and Clinton administrations, and is currently deputy director of New York University’s State Energy & Environmental Impact Center.
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Deb Haaland will need an experienced, steady hand to implement the Biden climate plan and get the Interior Department back on course. I’ve known Elizabeth Klein for years, and there’s no one better for the job.”
