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The Center for Western Priorities released a new report that examines the important role that new national monuments can play in the goal to conserve 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030, while preserving our natural and cultural heritage for current and future generations. The storymap examines five locally-driven conservation proposals across Nevada, Texas, Oregon, and Arizona, each with grassroots support. If Congress doesn't act to protect these iconic and culturally significant places they ought to be prime opportunities for the Biden administration to designate as national monuments.
"For over a century, presidents from both political parties have used the Antiquities Act to protect some of America’s most iconic landscapes and historic sites," said Center for Western Priorities Executive Director Jennifer Rokala, "The Biden administration has the opportunity to build a conservation legacy by listening to local voices and acting boldly to establish new national monuments."
Despite the Trump administration’s 2017 national monuments review that resulted in the shrinking of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, national monuments are widely popular across the West: 84% of Westerners support creating new national parks, national monuments, national wildlife refuges, and tribal protected areas, and 77% support restoring protections to lands in the West which contain archaeological and Native American sites, even if they also have oil, gas, and mineral deposits.
A turning point for Big Oil?
Yesterday was a big day for the oil industry as three of the world's largest oil corporations faced a reckoning over climate change: A civil court in the Netherlands ordered Royal Dutch Shell to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 45% below 2019 levels before the end of the decade; an activist hedge fund seeking to shift Exxon Mobil away from fossil fuels and toward renewables won two board seats at the annual shareholder meeting; and climate-concerned shareholders at Chevron's investor meeting voted to force the company to develop a plan to cut the emissions generated from the use of its product, making the company ultimately responsible for the pollution caused by the use of its product. Clark Williams-Derry, an oil analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said “This really is the start of a new era for Big Oil. You can’t shrug this off as having had a bad day. This is all three largest supermajors taking it on the chin from shareholders or the courts.” In addition, Ford announced it will produce 40% electric vehicles by 2030, and it has received 70,000 orders for the Lightning EV truck.
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The situation we face today is real and urgent. The Colorado River is at a crossroads. The reality we knew was coming has arrived."
