- - Sneezing our way through the end of the year. This is the last episode of the Landscape for 2023. It's your show about America's parks and public lands from the Center for Western priorities. I'm Erin Weiss in Denver. - And I'm Kate Retinger in Salt Lake City. Today we've got CW P'S executive director Jen Roula, here for a year, end Public Lands News Roundup, and a look ahead at 2024. Welcome back, Jen. - Great to be with you guys today.
- Well, I'm really excited to do this because up until 2023, we had been somewhat guarded as an organization when it came to President Biden's public lands record. Over the course of the first half of his first term, there was some good, there was some bad, but a lot of incomplete up until 2023. And Janet seems like this year the president really did fill in a lot of blanks. - This has been an incredible year, uh, for conservation and for public lands.
Uh, president Biden and his administration have really hit the accelerator when it comes to making progress. And, uh, this has just been a remarkable year. - Well, that's the Electric Motor Accelerator, of course. Exactly. So let's, let's get into it. Uh, January, really, it got off to a strong start. The administration right off the bat banned logging and road building on nearly 9 million acres of the Tongass National Forest in southeastern Alaska.
That, of course, incredibly important because the Tongass is a massive carbon sink. It holds more than 40% of all the carbon stored in America's national forests. I learned that from Dr. Dominic Dalala former podcast guest, uh, this year worth listening to a couple of episodes we did with him. So protecting the Tongass, of course, incredibly important, but it is also some of the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to climate change solutions that the Biden administration could do.
- Right. Um, and also in January, the administration took a huge step to protect Alaska's Bristol Bay from a proposed open pit copper mine called the Pebble Mine. Now, the Pebble mine has been lurking around since the 2010s and tribes have been trying to stop it. And essentially what the Biden administration did is the EPA vetoed the mine under section 4 0 4 C of the Clean Water Act.
Um, and the reason this matters is that Bristol Bay contains the most productive wild salmon ecosystem in the world. So it's a huge economic driver for the tribes up there, and it's just been sort of in limbo for like over a decade. And it's great that the Biden administration finally put its foot down and ended that controversy. - Uh, well, yeah. And also in January, uh, the Biden administration announced a mineral withdrawal in, uh, boundary waters canoe area wilderness in Minnesota.
And this announcement would protect over 200,000 acres of federal land. And, uh, really the most important part is protecting the area from the threat of copper and nickel mining. - Alright, we have got to get through an entire year here, and that was just January. So let's move along. Uh, in February, the state of the Rockies project at Colorado College released its 13th annual conservation in the West poll, once again, finding that voters overwhelmingly support public lands conservation.
Uh, and Jen this year, really, there was a big focus on water issues. - That's right, Aaron. Uh, you know, we've seen, you know, significant drought here in the West. And so, uh, Colorado College, the state of the Rockies Project wanted to really focus on water and, uh, the shortage of water. So what we found was, or what Colorado College found was that half of Western voters said the shortage of water was a serious crisis. Another 39% said that it was a significant problem.
Uh, the poll also revealed a knowledge gap, uh, when it comes to what voters think, or who voters think is using the most water industry and business farmers and ranchers or people in their homes. And what we found is that only voters in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming correctly identified that farmers and ranchers use the most water in other states voters thought it was industry. So there is a lot of education still to do, uh, when it comes to the water crisis in the West.
- And I just wanna flag one other key finding from that conservation in the West poll, 84% of voters, and of course that means across the political spectrum, 84% support presidents using their ability to protect public lands as national monuments. And among Gen Z voters, that climbs to a stunning 94% support for national monuments using the Antiquities Act. - Yeah. Turns out the kids are. All right. So let's time travel real quick to November.
Obviously there were some smaller elections this year. Jen, do you think that any of the conservation in the West polling played out in those elections? Did we see, um, candidates talking about those issues and winning on any of those platforms? - Well, we didn't see candidates, but we did see a number of ballot measures, um, that focused on funding parks, uh, and other, uh, conservation related issues.
And I would say absolutely we saw, uh, overwhelming support for ballot measures in Phoenix and Albuquerque where people voted to, uh, increase funding for parks. And a really interesting one was, uh, in Texas, uh, where Texans overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment, creating a new fund to acquire land and create more state parks. And as our listeners probably know that Texas is a state with very little public land.
- Very true. I'm from Texas and I didn't know about public land until I moved to Utah . Um, and on that point, I was following that closely as a Texan, and every single county voted for that. There was not a single county in the state that did not approve that constitutional amendment. - A as always put conservation and parks on the ballot, and they will always win. Alright, that brings us to March, which was a wild ride.
It was March 14th when the Biden administration announced its plans to propose a rule to end future oil and gas lease sales in parts of the National Petroleum Reserve, Alaska, which will be known for the rest of this podcast as the NPRA rule. This was obviously very welcome news. We didn't see that actual language of the rule until September, but the very next day in March, March 15th, the Biden administration approved a controversial oil and gas project in Alaska, known as the Willow Project.
It has been referred to by US and others as a carbon bomb for the amount of lifetime carbon that that project will emit into the atmosphere. Jen, the Center for Western Priorities, I think rightfully took the administration to task for that Willow approval. So did Willow make that NPRA rulemaking over the course of the year even more important?
- Oh, absolutely. And, you know, we were extremely disappointed in the Willow approval, but celebrated, uh, the announcement that the administration was going to do the NPR rulemaking. I mean, the NPR rulemaking is incredibly important. It protects over 13 million acres in the NPRA, and this is an area where Alaska natives use this for hunting and, uh, food gathering.
And, uh, it's just, it, while the Willow decision is very disappointing, the NPRA rulemaking is incredibly important in the president's, uh, goal of reaching 30 by 30. - Right. And then, um, continuing on in March, maybe piling on the good news there to, to withdraw some attention from Willow, the president designated a quame and Kasner range national monuments at the 2023 Conservation and Action Summit.
We were obviously really excited about these announcements being a public land conservation group. Um, but only one of them was actually a surprise. We knew about quame. We knew it was coming because the president announced his intention to protect Quame at the White House Tribal Nation Summit back in November, 2022. So a few months before, and then he decided to just wait, which was kind of a strange strategy. And I'm curious, uh, how do you think that worked, Aaron?
- I, I suspect that was dotting i's and crossing t's and making sure that that Monument Proclamation had everything that it needed. Uh, because I think it shows how intentional the Biden administration is being when it comes to protecting 30 by 30 and using these monument proclamations to help advance the country closer to that goal.
Uh, we just saw a report, uh, this week from the Center for American Progress adding up that in total the president protected more than 12 and a half million acres of public lands in 2023. Uh, that is, of course, a very large number, uh, 12.5 million. It's about half a percent in terms of the country's entire, uh, land area. So we are making progress slow but steady towards 30 by 30. And that is, I think, really the big takeaway from this year. It's something to celebrate.
- Totally. That number surprised me when their report came out. Um, it's obviously more than just the monuments, it's protections for, honestly, I don't know. What do you think it is, ? - It's, it, it, well, it's, it's Tonga, it's old Growth Forest. It's, uh, it, it's things like the, the Roadless rule that we've, uh, seen, uh, confirmed again and again. So, yeah, it, it is all over the place.
Um, and the Antiquities Act, as we've said, is one of the many tools in the Conservation toolbox, but there are a lot more at this administration's disposal. - That's true. And if you wanna see the, the details on that, we will drop the link to that cap report in our show notes. Um, alright, so let's move on to April.
The administration kicked off the month by announcing a proposed rule that would put conservation on equal footing with other uses of public lands like grazing, mining, and oil and gas. It would also encourage BLM field offices to be more proactive in designated areas of critical environmental concern or Ace eecs. Um, Jen, why is this rule such a big deal?
- This is really important, uh, when it comes to managing, uh, BLM lands and putting conservation on equal footing with other uses for public lands. It, it shouldn't be so surprising, uh, but it is incredibly important, and I think I'm gonna, you know, use a quote that, uh, former Senator Tom Udall used to say is that we're gonna protect the best and restore the rest.
So this gives, uh, ranchers industry the opportunity to restore lands that have been, um, either overgrazed or, uh, there's been oil and gas development. It also gives conservation leaders and opportunity to restore lands that, that need to be protected and restored. - And when the public comment period on that proposed rule closed in July, we looked at all the comments that came in, 92% of them supported that rule. And that, of course, aligns with what we'd seen in the Colorado College polling.
It's what we see in our own winning. The West Poll, the public overwhelmingly supports conservation of nature and public lands. Uh, that rule, of course, not yet final. We will get to that a bit more when we talk about what's coming in 2024. Let's barrel on into May. Senator Martin Heinrich and Congressman Rel Alva introduced a bill that would overhaul the General Mining Act of 1872.
Uh, also in May, Nevada Senator Katherine Cortez Masto and representative Susie Lee, also of Nevada represent, introduced also that month, Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto and representative Susie Lee of Nevada reintroduced their legislation that would end speculative oil and gas leasing on public lands.
Both of those good bills, unfortunately, neither seems to be going anywhere in this Congress, especially on heels, uh, of reports, especially coming on the heel of a report that this current house was the least productive in history in terms of actually passing bills into law. Uh, Jen, what are your thoughts on, on the gridlock and the dysfunction that we are seeing, particularly in the house, uh, does that increase the pressure on the administration to get these policy changes done another way?
- Absolutely. I mean, it's unfortunate that Congress is so dysfunctional when it comes to passing meaningful legislation. I mean, we're operating, um, under a mining law that is over 150 years old, which is just, it's just crazy. And obviously that benefits the mining industry. We've put out a number of reports about the, uh, impact of lobbying and campaign contributions, uh, that the mining industry has given to keep the status quo.
And even there, there are some additional legislation that, uh, would even be worse in than the General Mining Act of 1872. So the administration needs to do what it can do through rulemaking process. But these two bills in particular are really important, uh, bills that have to be passed by Congress if we're gonna see these types of changes implemented. - Um, okay, so sticking in May here we also saw the three Colorado River Lower Basin states, which are Arizona, California, and Nevada.
Agree to voluntarily conserve 3 million acre feet of water over the next three years in exchange for $1.2 billion in compensation from the federal government. Now, it was kind of a surprise that the three base lower basin states could even come to an agreement. And, um, the Interior Department was very pleased with that. And they said in October, later this year that the plan was good enough for now.
Um, but of course we know that they have to, the basin states have to renegotiate a new, new guidelines by 2027. So the drama is far from over. Um, in fact, it already ramped up again, apparently at the annual Colorado River Basin, um, water manager meeting in Vegas, which happened in December. Um, apparently the, the tensions were, were on display between the upper and lower basins about who's gonna cut more, who's gonna, um, give up more water going into, um, 2027.
- But I, I think the, the key takeaway there is that $1.2 billion, as we've talked about in a bunch of podcast episodes about the Colorado River crisis. Uh, the fundamental question here is do you have to blow everything up or can you just throw money at the problem? And this would suggest that for now at least, yes, you can throw some money at the problem to kick the can down the road by another couple years. Uh, alright, we have made it to June, almost halfway there.
We're gonna really pick up the speed here. Alright. In June, the Biden administration issued an executive order establishing a 20 year mineral withdrawal around Chaco Canyon that's gonna protect a 10 mile buffer surrounding Chaco culture, national Historical Park. And that withdrawal really, Jen, has been a long time coming. - Absolutely. Uh, this has been decades in coming. I mean, there's been campaigns to protect the 10 mile buffer surrounding Chaco, uh, for as long as I can remember.
And, uh, it was just, it was great to see this announcement in June. - Awesome. So next up we have Senators, Wyden and Merkley who reintroduced a bill to protect more than 1 million acres of public land in the Wahi Canyon lands in Oregon. Um, the Wahi Canyon Lands area is a huge, largely undeveloped, um, sage brush stronghold. The act is called the Maller Community Empowerment for the Oae Act. Kind of a mouthful there.
And it would put 1 million acres of public land in southeast Oregon and a 15 mile stretch of the Oae River under the protection of the National Wilderness Preservation System and the Wild and River Scenic Rivers system. Um, so this, this bill, you know, we just talked about Congress, they're not really getting anything done. We're not really expecting this bill to go anywhere. As - Great as that would be if it did - as great.
Yeah, of course. We're, we are supported, but it's, uh, you know, we're realists here, but there is a coalition working to protect the oi that is asking Biden to consider in Antiquities Act designation. And we are working on a film about that. So stay tuned to learn more.
- Well, and on the topic of monuments, members of the California delegation Congressional delegation also asked President Biden to use the Antiquities Act to add over 100,000 acres to the San Gabriel Mountain's National Monument in California. This is another of the National Monument proposals that we could see move in 2024 if President Biden wants to take big steps towards achieving, uh, a 30 by 30.
- Alright, onto July, when we saw the Bureau of Land Management released it's proposed oil and gas rule that would affect how public lands are leased to oil and gas companies. The rule on one hand would just implement what the Inflation Reduction Act, uh, put into law in 2022. But beyond that, it would also update the minimum bonding requirements that are woefully inadequate for making sure that oil and gas companies clean up after themselves.
There was, of course, a public comment period for that rule. It ended in September, and we found that this one really took me by surprise. 99% of the comments submitted supported this rule. Like I did this analysis and thought it was wrong at first till I really looked in like, no, you have to go look. For anyone who thinks this is a bad idea, that rule is still working its way through the federal rulemaking process. That is, of course, a theme here in this episode.
But Jen, I wanna take a moment to ask about these public comment periods. Why is it worth looking at tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of public comments the way we do here at CWP? - Well, public, the public comment period is incredibly important. It gives the public, uh, you and me and, and people who, you know, live near these landscapes the opportunity to comment on something that the administration is considering implementing a rule about.
So it it, it, it gives people the opportunity to say whether they support something, they don't support something. And it also gives the administration the information they need. Like, what does the public think about this? And, uh, are we headed in the right direction, uh, when we're going to make, you know, some major changes, uh, to oil and gas leasing on public lands.
- So moving on to July, the BLM held a public meeting in Flagstaff, Arizona to get feedback on the proposed BJJ Njo, IITA Coveney ancestral footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. Um, one of the longest national monument names we've seen . Um, the monument is over a million acres and it's split into three sections that surround Grand Canyon National Park. Now I went to that meeting and it was really moving.
It was incredible how many people there were in favor of the Monument designation. Um, and, and the things that they talked about, the the fact that there is a real threat of uranium mining to the Colorado River and to the tribes that rely on the water table around the Grand Canyon for their, um, livelihood. And that's the Havasupai, the Alap Pie, um, and a couple of others.
And, um, the BLM apparently got the message loud and clear because President Biden did designate that monument less than a month after the meeting in August. Jen, why do you think the president moved so fast? This was a, this was really quick. It actually took us by surprise. We were, we were off work the day that it, the news came in - .
Well, I think what the president and his administration saw, not only at the public meeting, but over the course of many years in public polling, is that there was broad support to designate this national monument in its broad and bipartisan support. And yeah, back in 2016, we actually thought President Obama was gonna designate, uh, this monument at the end of his administration.
And so there has been a long ongoing campaign to protect the, the, the area around the Grand Canyon, the watershed around the Grand Canyon. - One other flag from August, that's when a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by the state of Utah that challenged President Biden's restoration of Bear's Ears in Grand Staircase. Escalante National Monuments, Utah of course, appealed that dismissal. National Monument opponents are hoping this makes it to the Supreme Court. Unclear if that will happen.
But the bottom line there, even with this Supreme Court, is that Monument opponents are up against a hundred years of case law regarding the Antiquities Act and the powers that it gives the president. Alright, keep moving on. - Well, we're still in August. Oh boy. Sorry to say . just can't seem to leave August behind. Um, in August, the BLM released new resource management plans, four parts of Colorado, Wyoming, and Idaho.
These RMPs got a bit buried under the other big headlines that we just talked about in August. Um, but they're actually really important. Um, they, they decide how hundreds of thousands of acres of public land will be managed. Um, the Colorado plan proposes new conservation designations for around a hundred thousand acres of public land in south southwest Colorado and would close, um, around 1.6 million acres to new oil and gas leasing, which is a pretty big deal.
- And the Wyoming plan, which is known as the Rock Springs Resource Management Plan that would cover over 3 million acres of public land, it would create 16 new areas of critical environmental concern. That's a plan that has caused quite a bit of hand wringing, I think unnecessarily in Wyoming. We've got an episode all about that, that we'll toss into the show notes and the Idaho plan, which has gotten maybe less attention, but is also a really big deal.
It created a new backcountry conservation area and it also closed areas with low or no potential of oil and gas development to future leasing. And those backcountry conservation areas are, uh, relatively new designation that helps BLM prioritize habitat conservation without fully closing the land to the potential of extraction. Uh, and, and Gen RMPs, I think as Kate mentioned, are a very big deal that fly under the radar a lot.
- No, exactly. RMPs are where the rubber hits the road in terms of, in terms of land management. They're not always high profile. Um, and they take years to create, but they are in effect for at least a decade or more. So they're really important tools to both protecting and figuring out how these public lands are used. - Right. I would just add that when Congress can't do anything, um, the r and ps are a good way to get some lands protected. Yep.
- Mm-Hmm. , because you have, you have to do them and Congress has told BLM you have to do them right. - Wait, we're still in August. Okay. This is shocking. I'll keep this one quick. Um, at the end of August, Noah released a proposal to designate over 5,000 square miles off the coast in central California as the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary. Now we did a video on this, it's in our postcards series.
Um, so if you wanna learn more about that, go check out the video, we'll drop a link. - Alright. We've made it through the summer. We are into September where the Biden administration canceled all of the seven remaining oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. That happened under the Trump administration. And then we also saw the text of that proposed rule for the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska that we talked about in March.
Uh, and after the 90 days of public comment on that one, a big public comment period, we went back and looked and once again, nine out of 10 public comments said Yes, protect the Arctic and, and put in these common sense protections on the most fragile areas of the NPRA.
- Right. Also in September, um, we saw the final oil and gas lease within the Badger two Medicine area withdrawn or, or retired by the oil and gas company that held it back in 2016, Congress permanently withdrew the entire Badger two medicine from oil and gas leasing and provided tax incentives for existing lessees who to voluntarily relinquish their leases.
This one company chose not to, and so they did finally reach an agreement with the federal government to give it up, um, which protects the Badger two Medicine area, which is just this really important part of Montana that sits between Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.
- Uh, so also in September, Southern California residents lawmakers, uh, uh, coalition of Conservation leaders asked, uh, president Biden to designate the Chuck Walla National Monument and expand Joshua Tree National Park. This is, uh, an area of six over 600,000 acre landscape, which is located to the south of Joshua Tree National Park and northeast of the Salton Sea.
The proposed monument includes, uh, vital habitat for threatened and endangered desert wildlife, including the Desert Tortoise, Bighorn Sheep and Chuck Wall, and the Chuck Walla lizard. It's also the proposed location for the reintroduction of the Sonoran Pronghorn Antelope. Uh, this area offers important outdoor recreation opportunities, uh, for nearby communities. Uh, we're actually working on a film about Chuck Walla, which we should release, uh, sometime early in the new year.
- I'm looking forward to that. Alright, we have made it to October into the fourth quarter where we saw the departure of Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Boudreaux replacement was Laura Daniel Davis, uh, as the acting Deputy Secretary. And Jen, I know you have known Laura for a very long time. Uh, how big a deal is that, uh, to have Laura as the number two at interior? - It, it's a big deal and I think Laura is just the, a a great person to, uh, take over that role.
She's worked, uh, in the Department of Interior for decades, uh, having worked under in the Obama administration, the Clinton administration, and now the Biden administration. I think Laura knows the department inside and out and is just a great, uh, a great addition to that position. - So also in October, the BLM released a travel plan for over 300,000 acres of public land near Moab called the Labyrinth Canyon Gemini Bridges Travel Plan.
That plan was really huge because it prioritizes conservation on those lands by actually closing around 400 miles of dirt road that are largely used by ATVs. We talked to an attorney from the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance on this podcast a few months ago, I guess back in October. Um, and you can go listen to that if you wanna learn more about that. - Jen, take us into November. - Wow, we're already to November.
Um, which actually brought some really concerning news out of Wyoming about a plan to auction off a parcel of state-owned land within Grand Teton National Park. This area is known as the Kelley Parcel. It's 640 acres and the state of Wyoming owns the land and it is constitutionally obligated to use it to make money for public education. Um, to do that, the state wants to auction off the parcel, uh, with a minimum bid of between 80 and $100 million.
But through a series of public meetings, Wyoming Heights, uh, responded to the proposed auction with so much opposition that the State Land Board decided to pause. Uh, and it's now up to the governor and the legislature to put together a plan to sell the land to the park service or swap it for other federal land in Wyoming. Uh, so stay tuned, uh, for what's gonna happen with the Kelly parcel. - Yeah, more stuff to watch in 2024. Alright, well that brings us into December.
We have made it to the end so far, knock on wood, or this piano that I'm sitting in front of right now, December's been kind of quiet. It's December 21st as we're recording this. So if you hear this and there's some big announcement that we haven't mentioned, that's why, uh, but we did see this month the Biden administration take a step toward protecting old growth forests by banning all commercial logging in them.
Uh, we just did a little mini episode with Dr. Dominic Dala, our Go-to Forest guy who thinks it is strong but not perfect. So go back and listen to that if you want the details on old growth forests. - Right. And earlier in this month of December, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a meeting on a bunch of conservation bills. The committee actually voted to advance a few of them, including the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act.
That's the core act which would protect over 400,000 acres of public land in Colorado. They also advanced legislation to protect the Dolores River area, Dolores River Canyons area, um, through the creation of a national conservation area. Unfortunately, as we've already mentioned, this legislation is still unlikely to go anywhere. It would have to make it through the house, which is a gauntlet.
So that's why we are asking the president to step in and protect the Dolores River Canyon area with a national Monument designation. - And Jen, as you mentioned in the Denver Post this month, that bill, uh, is actually a separate area from the National Monument proposal. You've got, uh, kind of a dual track going here to protect the Dolores.
- Yeah, that's right. Uh, the, the legislation actually protects, uh, the southern section of the Dolores and there the northern section, which is in Mesa and Montrose counties, uh, should be a national monument. I mean, we, the CWP team visited the Dolores, uh, river, uh, canyon area back in uh, September. And it is an incredible landscape. Uh, and it's definitely on our watch list for next year.
The legislation that is being sponsored by Michael Bennett and John Hickenlooper and Congresswoman Lauren Bober leaves out the most ecologically important area of the River Canyon. Um, so it'd be great if President Biden, uh, designated, uh, a monument that would cover the northern part, including, uh, the areas included in, uh, Mesa and Montrose counties. - Awesome. Well, that brings us into 2024 and we promised we'd come back to a lot of topics. So let's start with the proposed rule.
There's the NPRA rule, the Public Land Rule, and the oil and gas rule. And all three of these rules are really important. Honestly, it would be hard to even stack them up against each other and say, which is the most important, but unfortunately the President does not have much time to get them done.
That's because of this thing called the Congressional Review Act or the CRA, which allows Congress and the president to overturn rulemakings within 60 legislative days of the rule being published in the Federal Register. That's the final rule being published, and that means the administration needs to complete these rulemakings well ahead of the next election. In fact, to be safe of the cutoff, they actually need to be completed sometime in April.
So, um, we're gonna have to hit 2024 hit, hit the ground running in 2024 if these rules are gonna get done. - Yeah, it's gonna be a very busy spring. And part of the challenge there, as you mentioned, is that that NPRA cutoff deadline is a moving target and you don't know what it actually is until Congress adjourns for the year because it is backwards looking. If Congress adds a bunch of days onto the calendar, the NPRA deadline, uh, drags out a bit more.
If Congress wraps up early and goes home because there's nothing to do or they're all running for reelection, then the, and the CRA deadline moves up in the year. Uh, so for that reason, the interior Department is under a lot of pressure to get this stuff out the door quickly in the first and second quarters of 2024. - Another thing we'll be watching for in the new year is the Rock Springs RMP process. We'll probably see a new draft of the RMP sometime in the early spring.
Hopefully the BLM will stick with its plan to prioritize conservation and not bend to the hysterics of Wyoming officials. - And finally, we'll be tracking the progress of a number of monument campaigns, um, that many that we've mentioned already, as well as releasing some new videos, which we've also mentioned about Wahi and Chuck Walla. There's so many good monument proposals in play right now. It's actually incredible how many have come up this year.
We went, we came into this year with only a few, um, monuments in play like Aqua May and Kassner, and we're coming out of this year with just a massive grab bag to, to choose from. Um, and Jen, I'm curious, do you think it being an election year will galvanize President Biden to protect any of these places? - Well, I think what we see is all of these campaigns coming together.
So regardless of it being an election year, I think the, the pieces are in place, uh, for the president to protect these, uh, national monuments. Uh, what we do see though in an election year is that voters support conservation. They wanna see more national monuments. They support the President using the Antiquities Act. And so I think public opinion is on the president's side, and I expect that we will see a number of new national monuments.
- And I think it's important to remember that national monuments are not a zero sum game. It's not like the president can just do Chuck Walla and that takes oi, he Canyon lands off the table. The, there is a very real possibility that the president looks and says, hang on, I can do all of these and that can be both my legacy and something to run on because we see from these public comment periods and from polling over and over again, there's no political downside.
It is all good both for the country and politically. Alright, I'll get off my soapbox there. If you wanna learn more about any of these monument proposals that are on the table, check out the postcards series. We will drop a link to that in the show notes. There's more in there that we didn't talk about, like the ESA Snow mountain expansion. Um, it's all very exciting. - Alright, well I think that's a wrap. Jen, thank you so much for joining us today.
And Erin, um, lovely to talk to you as always. - As always, see you in 2024. Thank you. From all of us at the Center for Western Priorities, we hope you're having a restful holiday, maybe even enjoying our public lands. I hear the desert is beautiful in winter. Just saying if you wanna reach us, of course you can email, podcast@westernpriorities.org - And happy New Year's and thank you as always for listening to the landscape.