Look West: Public lands and energy news from the Center for Western Priorities


** Biden administration announces renewable energy plans
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Thursday, January 13, 2022
Solar panels on Bureau of Land Management lands, B ([link removed]) LM ([link removed])

Yesterday, the Biden administration announced steps ([link removed]) to bolster the deployment of renewable energy on public lands and waters and clean up the electric grid. Central to the new effort is an interagency memorandum of understanding to prioritize reviews of renewable energy proposals on public lands ([link removed]) , with the goal of permitting 25 gigawatts of renewable projects on public lands by 2025. The new collaboration includes the Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, and the EPA. As part of the new initiative, the Interior Department is developing plans for new Renewable Energy Coordination Offices (RECOs) that will work with the Bureau of Land Management on clean energy.

Offshore, plans for a record-breaking wind energy lease sale ([link removed]) moved forward, with the most leases ever offered off the coasts of New York and New Jersey. Throughout the year, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management plans to keep momentum going on proposals to bring wind farms ([link removed]) to areas off the Gulf Coast, California, Oregon, and central Atlantic.

Additional renewable energy efforts announced include ([link removed]) $20 billion in grid funding from the Department of Energy to improve the grid, and a Department of Agriculture pilot program to support clean energy in underserved rural communities—among many others ([link removed]) .

Yesterday's announcements build on a highly-productive year for the Biden administration on renewable energy efforts, even as the administration has had an inconsistent and contradictory approach to oil and gas production on public lands. Last year the administration offered oil companies the rights to 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico, starting the timer on a “carbon bomb.” ([link removed])

The administration's actions come at a time when America desperately needs to cut its carbon emissions in order to slow the accelerating climate crisis. Recent reporting found that extreme weather and climate disasters last year cost the country at least $145 billion ([link removed]) .


** Katie Worth on how big oil is influencing public education
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From buying off experts to luring in underpaid teachers with promises of classroom supplies, Big Oil and Big Coal are waging a successful war on accurate science education and setting the U.S. up to fail in its fight against climate change ([link removed]) .

In the latest episode of The Landscape ([link removed]) , award-winning investigative journalist Katie Worth joins CWP to talk about the issue, which is the topic of her new book, Miseducation: How Climate Change is Taught in America. The book, which came out in November 2021, pulls the curtain back on the many ways the fossil fuel industry is sowing doubt about climate change in America’s classrooms, despite the global scientific consensus that human-causing climate change is real and getting worse.
Quick hits


** Nevada Reps join call for designating Avi Kwa Ame a national monument
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Nevada Independent ([link removed])


** Biden admin defends Trump Interior coal leasing review
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E&E News ([link removed])


** Arizona politicians say look for 'big things' about water in Legislature this session
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Arizona Daily Star ([link removed])


** Unregulated pipelines may be biggest methane emitters
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E&E News ([link removed])


** Environmental groups launch six-figure ad campaign pressuring Colorado’s governor to act on abandoned oil and gas wells
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Colorado Sun ([link removed])


** Rocky Mountain National Park to require reservations again this summer
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Denver Post ([link removed]) | Denver Channel ([link removed])


** ‘We’re building a wall’: Environmentalists dismayed as construction continues through National Wildlife Corridor
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News 10 ([link removed])


** Collaborative effort begins to expand California national monument, support tribal co-management
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Daily Democrat ([link removed])
Quote of the day
” In 2022 and beyond, let's all commit to preserving and protecting our public lands, not only for ourselves, but so generations who follow can go to the mountain and return with lessons that will guide them."

—Bill Bryant, 2016 Washington Republican nominee for governor, I ([link removed]) nlander ([link removed])
Picture this


** @n ([link removed]) ationalparkservice ([link removed])
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FOOTLOOSE
PET GOOSE
PICKED A FIGHT WITH A MOOSE

PAIN
REAL PAIN
WATCH OUT, THAT’S A KNEE SPRAIN

Something like that. Moose are the largest members of the deer family. On average, an adult moose stands between five and seven feet high at the shoulder. Large males can weigh as much as 1,500 pounds while females are roughly three-quarters of this size. Moose are generally browsers and eat leaves, stems, buds and bark off woody shrubs and trees. Think of the fiber! During fall and winter, moose consume large quantities of willow, birch, and aspen twigs. Moose can eat up to 70 pounds of food per day. They remember their favorite feeding areas and predictably return to favorite seasonal habitats. Enjoy moose at a distance. Give these animals plenty of room to roam without human interferences. Moose can top speeds of 35 miles per hour. Can you? If you see a moose display a threatening position of "head high" or "head low," it’s time to footloose. ⁣
⁣
Image: Don’t moose with me. ⁣Bull moose on a roadside with snowy forested landscape at @glacierbaynps ([link removed]) M, Alaska. NPS/ S. Tevebaugh ⁣
⁣
#alaska ([link removed]) #moose ([link removed]) #nationalparkservice ([link removed]) #recreateresponsibly ([link removed])

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