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


** Biden to make Avi Kwa Ame pledge
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Wednesday, November 30, 2022
A Joshua tree inside the proposed Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. Photo: Justin McAfee.

Today, President Biden will commit to protecting Avi Kwa Ame in Nevada as America's next national monument. The Washington Post reports ([link removed]) that Biden will make the pledge at the White House Tribal Nations Summit and hopes to visit the area soon.

Twelve Indigenous tribes have led the effort to create the Avi Kwa Ame monument, which holds deep spiritual significance. The area, spanning approximately 450,000 acres near the southern tip of Nevada, also connects more than a dozen wilderness and conservation areas ([link removed]) , providing continuous habitat and migration corridors for wildlife including bighorn sheep and desert tortoises.

Tim Williams, chair of the Fort Mojave Tribal Council, told the Post, “There’s a spiritual connection that makes us Mojave people. If it’s not protected, our generation will not have done our job.”

Avi Kwa Ame is threatened by encroaching development. Four large solar farms generate electricity along U.S. 95 north of Searchlight, which is located inside the monument boundary. A wind farm in Arizona is visible from higher parts of the proposed monument.

Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, stressed that protecting Avi Kwa Ame will not hamper the nation's transition to renewable energy ([link removed]) , calling those claims a “false dichotomy.”

“There are millions of acres of public land open to wind and solar development,” Rokala said ([link removed]) . “Conservation and the green economy aren’t an ‘either/or’ proposition—it’s a ‘both/and’ situation.”
Quick hits


** It turns out Western voters care a lot about public lands
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High Country News ([link removed])


** Biden administration pledges $250 million to Salton Sea projects in exchange for Colorado River conservation
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Desert Sun ([link removed]) | Los Angeles Times ([link removed])


** Lawmakers eye languishing public lands bills as part of spending package, but permitting reform looms over talks
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E&E News ([link removed])


** Biden poised to honor tribes with Nevada national monument, his largest yet
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Washington Post ([link removed])


** How to prevent the greater Yellowstone ecosystem from unraveling
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Mountain Journal ([link removed])


** Tributes pour in to Rep. Don McEachin, a champion of conservation and environmental justice
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Washington Post ([link removed])


** Proposed Oregon gold mine to begin environmental review process
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OPB News ([link removed])


** What's killing dozens of cows in rural Colorado? Officials are perplexed
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Denver Post ([link removed])
Quote of the day
” If there was one across-the-board loser in these midterms, it was the Trump school of extremism. The MAGAs ran a slate of [DEL: raucous wingnuts, :DEL] er, outspoken candidates across the region, from Bundy in Idaho to Kari Lake in Arizona, who parroted Trump and bashed old-school GOPers Rep. Liz Cheney and the late Sen. John McCain during her run for governor. Very few succeeded. Bundy was bashed by incumbent Republican Idaho Gov. Brad Little, and Lake lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs, who supports clean energy, tribal sovereignty, rational immigration reform and economic justice. (Lake, of course, refuses to concede).
—Jonathan Thompson, High Country News ([link removed])
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** @usinterior ([link removed])
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The Interior Department is committed to telling America's accurate, authentic and complete history — even the difficult parts.

Some of it hurts and some of it heals, but all of this history can help us build a more equitable future.

Chaotic, horrific, tumultuous and bloody, the events of November 29, 1864, changed the course of history. Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site commemorates the brutal attack on a village of about 750 Cheyenne and Arapaho people along Sand Creek in Colorado.

The pain of the Sand Creek Massacre is felt by generations of Indigenous people. The site remains a sacred place to honor the dead and the dispossessed — a site where they are not forgotten.

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