March, in brief

Key news from March:

• Interior Secretary Deb Haaland toured Texas's Castner Range, raising hopes that President Biden could soon protect the area as a national monument. Haaland hiked in the area and met with local advocates who are requesting the monument designation. The 7,000 acre area is visible from El Paso, but currently off-limits to hikers because of unexploded ordnance remaining from years of use as a weapons training and testing site for nearby Fort Bliss. Rep. Veronica Escobar, who introduced a bill last year that would create a national monument, accompanied Secretary Haaland on her visit. Local conservation groups, including the Castner Range Coalition, Frontera Land Alliance, and Nuestra Tierra, have asked President Biden to use his authority under the Antiquities Act to designate a national monument.
• President Joe Biden proposed a $4 billion increase in funding for the Interior Department in his 2023 budget request to Congress. Over a quarter of the $18 billion spending request would go toward climate change programs, including $325 million to reduce wildfire risk and restore burned land. The budget would also prioritize the president's "America the Beautiful" initiative, including the 30x30 goal of protecting 30 percent of America's lands and waters by the end of the decade. The Interior spending plan includes $25.5 million to create the American Conservation Stewardship Atlas, which would track progress towards the goal. The president's plan would continue onshore and offshore oil and gas leasing, but it also calls for significant increases in funding for renewable energy development, especially for offshore wind development.
• The country's largest outdoor gear trade show will return to Salt Lake City next year, leaving Denver, where the show has been held for the past five years. Outdoor Retailer left Utah in 2017 after the state's leaders petitioned former President Donald Trump to shrink Bears Ears National Monument. The move could force a number of major outdoor brands to make good on a promise to boycott the trade show if it moves back to Utah, citing the state's ongoing litigation to undo the restoration of Bears Ears National Monument. 
• The Biden administration said it is planning to resume plans to lease public lands for oil and gas drilling, following a favorable interim ruling in a lawsuit over whether or not the federal government can factor the true cost of carbon into federal decision-making. The decision temporarily lifts a court-ordered ban on factoring the cost of carbon into federal decision-making issued last month, which prompted the Interior Department to halt oil and gas leasing.
• The water level at Lake Powell fell below 3,525 feet, its lowest level since the lake filled after the federal government dammed the Colorado River at Glen Canyon more than 50 years ago. Reaching this critical threshold raises concerns about the ability to generate hydropower from Glen Canyon Dam, a power source that millions of people living in the West rely on. Recent hydrology modeling suggests there’s roughly a 1 in 4 chance Lake Powell won’t be able to produce power by 2024. 
• Gas has been leaking from a major drilling site in the Alaskan Arctic operated by ConocoPhillips. In response, the company has evacuated more than 300 nonessential personnel from the area, and some 20 families have left the nearby town of Nuiqsut, a village of just 500 people. The report of gas leaking from multiple wellheads comes as ConocoPhillips is seeking approval for a massive project nearby. Should it be approved, Conoco's proposed Willow Project would produce 160,000 barrels of oil a day for 30 years, effectively erasing the climate benefits gained from the Biden administration's efforts to increase renewable energy on public lands. 
• National Park Service Director Chuck Sams told lawmakers that his agency and others within the Interior Department are committed to increasing the role Native American Tribes play in managing public lands across the United States. Sams, the first Native American to lead the Park Service, noted there are currently four national parks in which Tribes hold co-management responsibilities, including Canyon de Chelly National Monument on the Navajo Reservation. 
• A new mapping project provides the most detailed look yet at where biodiversity is threatened in the United States. The work is a critical step toward protecting 30 percent of America's land and water by 2030, known as "30x30." By highlighting which areas are most threatened with biodiversity loss, and which areas are currently protected from development, policymakers and scientists can make data-driven decisions about which areas need protection.
• President Biden delivered his first State of the Union address on Tuesday, March 1, giving only a passing nod to the climate crisis, touting $500 in household energy savings by combating climate change. The president did not mention the recently published report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that warned of widespread human suffering if the world continues on its current path of carbon emissions.

What to watch for in April:

• On April 6, executives at Devon, ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell, and Pioneer Natural Resources will testify before a House Energy and Commerce Committee subpanel titled “Gouged at the Gas Station: Big Oil and America’s Pain at the Pump.” However, the chief executives of EOG Resources, Devon Energy, and Occidental Petroleum declined to participate in a different hearing next week hosted by the House Natural Resources Committee that would have focused on the industry's stockpile of approved but unused drilling permits on public lands. The three companies combined hold more than 2,800 of those approved permits. 
• National Parks week is April 16-24, an excellent opportunity to highlight the amazing natural and cultural resources of America's national parks and to celebrate Earth Day on April 22.

@Interior

Happy First Day of Spring! 🌺 Here’s to warmer temperatures, new life and dramatic splashes of every imaginable color. Photo courtesy of Scott Eliot