February, in brief

Key news from February

• The Interior Department released its final environmental review of ConocoPhillips’ proposed Willow oil and gas project in Alaska. Despite claiming to have “substantial concerns” about the environmental impact of the project, the Biden administration appears poised to approve the massive project. The Bureau of Land Management now estimates that Willow will produce up to 278 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over the next 30 years. The Interior Department has more time to issue a final decision. While it could decide to deny the project, this outcome appears unlikely. "It’s not too late to change course," CWP Deputy Director Aaron Weiss said, "but President Biden needs to think hard about his legacy on America’s public lands. He’s making big promises for the future, but his actions today take the country in the wrong direction."
   
• In his State of the Union address, President Biden touted the climate-focused agenda of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—he celebrated the creation of jobs to build clean energy infrastructure, trumpeted the tax credits offered to those buying electric vehicles, and promoted the creation of new electric grids that will withstand worsening storms. He even noted the exorbitant profits that oil and gas companies raked in last year, calling artificially inflated gas prices amid a global energy catastrophe “outrageous." President Biden failed to acknowledge the Colorado River crisis, which impacts the lives of the nearly 40 million people who rely on the river for water, food, and recreation. In light of the ongoing 23-year-long megadrought, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the nation’s largest reservoirs, now contain a fraction of the water they did during their peak in the 1980s, and they are unlikely to refill in our lifetimes.
   
• Support for conservation efforts remains high across the West, according to the 13th annual Conservation in the West Poll from the Colorado College State of the Rockies Project. The bipartisan poll, which is considered the gold standard for public opinion research on conservation measures, surveyed more than 3,400 people in eight Western states. Across the West, more than two thirds of respondents said that reducing the need for oil and gas and expanding renewable energy was a bigger priority than expanding production of oil, gas, and coal. Two thirds of Western voters said that drought and inadequate water supplies are a serious problem. Four out of five voters in Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah say the Colorado River is at risk and in need of urgent action. The Conservation in the West Poll also showed growing support for the "30x30" initiative to protect American lands and waters. The full poll results and a look back at previous years is available at the Colorado College State of the Rockies website.
   
• It's been 90 days since President Biden pledged to designate Nevada's Avi Kwa Ame, or Spirit Mountain, as a national monument—but he still hasn't fulfilled his promise. The Center for American Progress released a report highlighting the importance of Avi Kwa Ame for meeting the president's environmental justice commitments. The report identifies the "nature gap" that exists around Avi Kwa Ame. It found that in the 25 mile radius around Avi Kwa Ame, communities of color "experience heightened nature deprivation, even while surrounded by other public lands in the region." Last fall at the White House Tribal Nations Summit, President Biden pledged to protect the 450,000-acre national monument using his authority under the Antiquities Act, saying it was a "sacred place that is central to the creation story of so many tribes that are here today." Learn more at honorspiritmountain.org and watch CWP's Road to 30 video postcard from Avi Kwa Ame.
   
• The Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on the “Transparency and Production of American Energy Act of 2023.” This draft bill proposes, among other things, to reverse many of the Inflation Reduction Act’s reforms to the onshore oil and gas leasing program. The bill would return royalty rates, minimum bids, and rental rates to the outdated rates that were put in place in 1920; eliminate the fees companies pay to nominate land for leasing; and restore noncompetitive leasing, letting companies lock up public land for just $1.50 an acre. The bill would also grant an oil industry wish list of exemptions from the environmental analysis requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act.

What to watch for in March:

• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to add 16 species and subtract three from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
• The Interior Department could issue a final decision on the Willlow Project in Alaska.
• Will President Biden designate Avi Kwa Ame and Castner Range as national monuments?
• Will the Biden administration initiate a rulemaking process for onshore oil and gas leasing and bonding reform?

Road to 30 Postcards: Caja del Rio

The Center for Western Priorities is excited to share the latest film in our Road to 30: Postcards series about the Caja del Rio plateau in northern New Mexico.

The Caja del Rio plateau is one of the most ecologically rich and culturally significant landscapes in the Southwest. Covering nearly 107,000 acres between the Rio Grande and Santa Fe rivers, the area acts as an important wildlife corridor and safe haven from wildfire and other climate disturbances for many species of mammals, birds, and reptiles. Since time immemorial, many Indigenous cultures have maintained a strong connection to the area’s land, water, and wildlife, and it is still regarded as sacred to many Pueblo people today. There are more than 4,000 petroglyphs at the La Cieneguilla Petroglyph site in the Caja del Rio that help tell the story of its spiritual and cultural significance. In addition, the history of Spanish settlement in the area dates back more than 13 generations to those who originally traveled to the Caja via the famed El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. These traditional communities have also relied on the Caja del Rio for hunting, cattle grazing, firewood collection, and religious pilgrimage for generations and continue to do so today. 

This beautiful and important landscape is threatened by vandalism, illegal dumping, and target shooting, as well as inadequate protections for the wildlife that depend on the area for survival. Permanent protection is needed to ensure this sacred place maintains its ecological and spiritual vitality for the benefit of human and wildlife communities for generations to come. The 2023 Colorado College Conservation in the West poll results show that 88 percent of New Mexico voters want to designate existing public lands in the Caja del Rio plateau as a national conservation area to increase protections for grasslands and canyons along the Santa Fe river and other smaller rivers flowing into the Rio Grande.

Watch the short 5-minute film to hear from people who know this region intimately, including Brophy Toledo, a member of the Jemez Pueblo (Walatowa) and co-founder of the Flower Hill Institute, José Villegas Sr, a Catholic Chaplain and Mayordomo of the Valle de la Cieneguilla Land Grant, and Andrew Black, a minister at First Presbyterian Church of Santa Fe and the public lands field director for the National Wildlife Federation. Each of them shares what makes this area spiritually, culturally, and ecologically significant, and why it is one of the most endangered landscapes in the country. 

In the second episode in a two-part series on critical minerals and mining, Aaron and Kate are joined by two mining reform experts to talk about the need to update our century-old mining laws and regulations in order to protect vulnerable communities and public lands as interest in mining grows thanks to electric vehicles and renewable energy needs.

Kate and Aaron are joined by water scientist Brad Udall to talk about the current state of the Colorado River. Water levels are dropping and something has to give or the river’s main reservoirs—Lake Powell and Lake Mead— are going to run dry. But states aren’t anywhere close to an agreement on how much each one is going to cut back.

Why conserving 30×30 is more than a numbers game

Center for American Progress
 

President Jimmy Carter's enduring environmental legacy

Washington Post
 

Amidst water crisis, California urged to limit growing of almonds, alfalfa 

Los Angeles Times
 

Colorado considers using public land for affordable housing

Colorado Sun
 

What does the nation's commitment to Tribal co-stewardship mean for public lands?

High Country News
 

Breakdown of Big Oil's $200 billion profits

The Guardian
 

Lake Powell drops to historic low, threatening hydropower generation

Los Angeles Times
 

As feds push solar, Nature Conservancy maps areas of least harm to wildlife

WyoFile
 

“The drought is so critical that this recent rainfall is a little like finding a $20 bill when you’ve lost your job and you’re being evicted from your house.”

—Rhett Larson, Arizona State University professor of water law, Salt Lake Tribune