Since the passage of the Mineral Leasing Act 103 years ago, vast amounts of U.S. public land have been managed to maximize resource extraction. But times are changing. As a nation and a planet, we are facing the very real threat of mass extinctions and runaway climate change. And yet we’ve continued to treat our public lands as a piggy bank rather than a source of resilience to help address these problems. But now, a slate of policy changes made by the Biden administration has begun an astonishing, generation-defining shift that will finally align public-lands management with how most voters think we should treat those lands.
Americans overwhelmingly support protecting public lands, but in recent years the government has come up short on following through. But 2024 will go down as the year that reversed that trend. President Joe Biden’s administration has led several critical agency efforts that comprise a comprehensive shift toward a more holistic conservation — a climate- and community-centric approach to managing public lands that will create a positive legacy for our children and grandchildren.
Headlining these changes is the Public Lands Rule, which, for the first time, places conservation on equal footing with other uses like grazing, drilling and mining. Back in 1976, Congress mandated that the Bureau of Land Management take a balanced approach to managing its public lands. But up to this point, the agency has largely focused on maximizing extraction, with just 13.6% of its 245-million-acre estate enjoying permanent protection from mining, drilling and other extractive industries. This new rule creates a consistent way of identifying exactly which places need to be protected, while laying out a process for their preservation and making tribal consultation a priority.
In addition to the rule, President Biden has used national monument designations to help conserve and protect places that have special cultural, historical and natural significance. Since taking office, Biden has protected over 1.6 million acres by designating them as national monuments under the Antiquities Act. Altogether, he has set a new record — protecting the most public land by any recent president in their first term. Beyond the acreage involved, these new monuments will preserve sacred tribal sites in Arizona and California, tell stories of injustice and inequality in Illinois and Mississippi, and honor our nation’s veterans in Colorado, among other things.
Only once in a generation, maybe once in several generations, have we seen so much done to protect our shared public lands.
Beyond land preservation, we also need to find ways to transition to clean energy production and to do so in the right way, focusing on those public lands where such energy development will have the least impact. The administration has responded with the Renewable Energy Rule, which will encourage the siting of clean energy development on public lands in places where projects make sense and will have minimal impacts on local species and communities. After decades of fossil energy dominance, the new rule levels the playing field for solar and wind energy by bringing rents and fees in line with private-land development.
Credit: Patrick Semansky/AP Photo
The administration has also put a powerful check on the influence of the big oil companies, which for decades have dictated which federal lands they want to prioritize for drilling. The new Oil and Gas Reform Rule will put long-overdue guardrails on indiscriminate oil and gas leasing, limit the participation of bad actors, and make sure that companies pay market rates for profiting from public resources. Importantly, the rule also sets new terms to ensure that companies cover the cost of cleanup after drilling is finished, rather than leaving communities to continue footing the bill or else live with a legacy of pollution.
Only once in a generation, maybe once in several generations, have we seen so much done to protect our shared public lands.
The progress is monumental, but we still have so far to go. This doesn’t have to be a partisan issue. Year after year, polling tells us that majorities of both Republicans and Democrats support conservation initiatives. Nearly three-quarters of likely Republican voters in the West say conservation is important to them when they’re making their voting choices, according to a Colorado College poll. In 2021, congressional Republicans touted their support of the Dingell Conservation Act, which created 1.3 million acres of new wilderness, while, a year before that, scores of Republicans helped pass the Great American Outdoors Act, which permanently funded vital conservation investments. Most Republicans understand that conservation is important, but too often political officials are swayed by the campaign cash handed out by the fossil fuel industry.
Indeed, last month, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump invited oil and gas CEOs to his home at Mar-a-Lago, where he reportedly asked for $1 billion in campaign dollars in exchange for his pledge to roll back the Biden administration’s conservation progress and champion new tax breaks for industry.
Americans understand that we can’t continue to lurch back and forth on conservation every four years. President Biden has delivered for the West. We need Republicans to listen to their own voters consistently, or else these advances will not endure.
