Land transfer is not the solution to the West's housing challenges
Tuesday, January 31, 2023
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Western lawmakers and leaders are rallying behind a disingenuous argument to solve the housing affordability crisis by privatizing public lands. Harriet Hageman, Wyoming's new congresswoman, mentioned the idea of using public lands to solve Teton County's housing crisis at a recent town hall meeting. Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo has also embraced the idea, calling for a "timely release" of Bureau of Land Management lands. And the Western Governors' Association, chaired by Colorado Governor Jared Polis, includes language in its 2023 housing policy resolution requesting that Congress make transferring federal land to local governments easier.
Hiding behind a guise of concern for Westerners, U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, an advocate for land transfer, has a bill ready to go to answer these misguided calls. In the last Congress, Lee introduced a bill that would allow for the nomination of unlimited tracts of unprotected national public land to be transferred by the Interior Department to state and local governments, which could then sell the lands to private buyers to develop with minimal—and temporary—restrictions. The bill lacks meaningful affordability or density requirements to ensure that housing built on transferred public lands actually addresses the West's housing affordability challenges and includes commercial allowances that would encourage the construction of hotels and short-term rentals.
A one-pager from the Center for Western Priorities provides a full account of the bill's shortcomings and highlights policy solutions that already exist for state and local governments that are serious about addressing housing affordability.
Environmental Protection Agency vetoes Pebble Mine
In its final determination for the Bristol Bay watershed, the EPA exercised a seldom-used authority under the Clean Water Act to protect Alaska's Bristol Bay from the proposed Pebble Mine by prohibiting the disposal of mine waste in certain waters within the watershed, finding that such activity would have "unacceptable adverse impacts" on salmon fisheries. This effectively blocks the proposed Pebble Mine as well as other future mines that would have similar or greater impacts.
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Environmental Protection Agency vetoes Pebble Mine
New York Times | Washington Post | Associated Press
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Six out of seven Colorado River Basin states propose framework to cut water use
Associated Press | Los Angeles Times
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Inside the high-dollar race to sell natural gas as low-carbon
Canary Media
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New Mexico investigating Permian Basin methane cloud spotted by satellite
Bloomberg
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Restored roadless protections help, but threats to the Tongass remain
Grist
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In a warming world, California's trees keep dying
High Country News
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Oregon wants to delay wildfire risk mapping—again
The Oregonian
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A river wounded: Crisis on the Rio Grande
Source NM
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 In a hundred years, we will have lost almost 20 percent of our forests. That’s like all of Southern California’s forests being gone, or all of the Southern Sierras being gone.”
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Erratics are boulders that were transported by glaciers, often long distances, and left behind as the ice melted. The boulders may have been plucked from bedrock beneath the glacier, or they may have fallen from ridges projecting above the ice surface. In many cases, erratics are composed of a different rock type than that of the polished and striated bedrock surface they face on. This is a good indication that they were transported by a glacier and set down in a new location.
Erratics are common on the domes in and around Tuolumne Meadows. In the summer, Olmsted Point is a great site to see them; however, most of the erratics there are composed of the same rock type as the rock they rest on: Half Dome Granodiorite. Some of the darkest erratics there are different rock units, such as the granodiorite of Kuna Crest.
This important geological feature records the story of a glacier's travels. Looking for the bedrock units that correspond with erratics can reveal complex flow patterns.
Have you ever seen an erratic at Yosemite?
#yosemitenps #yosemite #geology #geodiversity #glaciers #erratics
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