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


** Biden has a long way to go to build his legacy on public lands
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Thursday, January 26, 2023
President Joe Biden at the Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument designation; Credit: Aaron Weiss ([link removed])

A new report from the Center for Western Priorities analyzing President Joe Biden's conservation record ([link removed]) over his first two years in office finds that, so far, the Biden administration is long on promises and short on action.

“While President Biden has much to be proud of, his record on land protection lags behind what President Barack Obama and even President Donald Trump had accomplished, with help from Congress, at a similar point in their first terms,” writes Aaron Weiss ([link removed]) , deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities and author of the progress report.

Presidents Obama and Trump had both protected millions of acres of public land ([link removed]) by similar points in their presidencies. President Biden, by contrast, has added less than 400,000 acres of new durable land protections during his first two years in office—50,000 acres at Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument in Colorado and 346,000 acres of wilderness and national conservation areas in Nevada that were designated when he signed the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act.

And while the report credits the Biden administration with modernizing the federal oil and gas leasing system via the Inflation Reduction Act, it notes that the administration faces a looming deadline to formalize these changes with a durable federal rulemaking to ensure they remain in place.

“Realistically, it takes at least a year for any major rule to go from the draft stage to being finalized,” Weiss writes. ([link removed]) “That means if the Biden administration hopes to lock in reforms to the oil and gas leasing system and protect them from repeal under the Congressional Review Act, it must publish those draft rules by this March or April at the latest.”


** Biden reinstates Tongass protections
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In a much-anticipated decision, the Biden administration has banned logging and road-building ([link removed]) on around nine million acres of the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska. The new rule reverses a Trump-era decision to remove protections for the pristine Alaskan forest that were first imposed in 2001.

The area is important as habitat for species such as cedar, hemlock and Sitka spruce trees and 400 species of wildlife, including bald eagles, salmon and the world’s greatest concentration of black bears. It is also a major carbon sink ([link removed]) , storing more than 10 percent of the carbon accumulated by all national forests in the United States, according to the government.

“The old-growth timber is a carbon sink, one of the best in the world,” said Joel Jackson ([link removed]) , president of the Organized Village of Kake, which sits on the forest's edge. “It’s important to OUR WAY OF LIFE — the streams, salmon, deer, and all the forest animals and plants.”
Quick hits


** Wyoming hunters find fake ‘no trespassing’ signs on public land
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Cowboy State Daily ([link removed])


** Biden bans roads and logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest
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New York Times ([link removed]) | Associated Press ([link removed]) | Washington Post ([link removed]) | The Hill ([link removed])


** New Mexico’s legislative session, funded by oil and gas, promises fireworks
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Source NM ([link removed])


** Progress report: President Biden’s second year on public lands
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Center for Western Priorities ([link removed])


** Exxon halts routine gas flaring in the Permian, wants others to follow
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Reuters ([link removed])


** Regulators nix proposal to delay closure of California’s last nuclear plant
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Los Angeles Times ([link removed])


** Biden granted more oil and gas drilling permits than Trump in his first 2 years in office
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Yahoo News ([link removed])


** The Sierra Club tries to move past equity issues with new director
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New York Times ([link removed])
Quote of the day
” Although the President has made historic progress towards combating climate change and clearing the path for an energy transition, the Biden administration must dramatically accelerate its land protection and rulemaking efforts if the president hopes to campaign on or leave a lasting legacy on America’s public lands in 2024.”
—Aaron Weiss, ([link removed]) C ([link removed]) enter for Western Priorities Deputy Director ([link removed])
Picture this


** @USDA ([link removed])
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Today we finalized protections for the Tongass National Forest which repeals the 2020 Alaska Roadless Rule and restores longstanding roadless protections to 9.37M acres of roadless areas that support the ecological, economic & cultural values of SE Alaska: [link removed] ([link removed])

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