-
- Welcome to the Landscape, your show about America's parks
and public lands.
I'm Erin Weiss with the Center for Western Priorities.
Having a great week here in Denver.
- And I'm Kate Retinger in Salt Lake City.
We've got two folks from the Wilderness Society here today
to help us break down the big changes announced
for public land management in the past few weeks.
These are really exciting rulemakings
or regulatory changes that will help protect
and bring balance to public land management everywhere from
New Mexico to Alaska.
So stay tuned for that. But first, let's do the news.
- Well, today's episode really is all news,
but there has been so much happening,
especially over the last week.
There's a little bonus news
before we get to all the other news.
Uh, and that is the conservation atlas.
The Biden administration finally released its first draft
of the Atlas last week.
This is a, an online atlas that tracks land
and water protections across the United States.
Now, what got released last week is a beta
version of the Atlas.
It's going to take a long time to get there
because they are collecting conservation information across
national, state, local, and private lands.
It is a huge data lift,
but this is a, an incredible first start.
Just having this framework going forward is
a huge step forward.
And what this means in the long term is that it is going
to allow us to put a concrete number on how close America is
to achieving President Biden's America.
The beautiful goal of protecting 30% of America's lands
and America's waters by 2030.
That is a goal, of course,
that comes straight from scientists like Dr.
En Sala, who, who we've talked to before.
They are the ones warning that without protecting 30%
of the world's intact nature, we are at risk
of ecosystem collapse on, on the, the precipice
of a sixth mass extinction.
So the first step, of course, to protecting 30
is counting the 30
and getting this atlas out the door saying, here's
how we are going to get there
and measure our progress, uh,
is an incredibly important first step.
- We're here today with the Wilderness Society's,
Michael Carroll and Justin Muse to talk through a handful
of federal regulations
or rulemakings that finalized this month.
Justin is the Government Relations Director
at the Wilderness Society.
Justin, thank you so much for being here.
- Thanks, Kate. Thanks, Aaron. Good to be with you again.
- And Michael is a campaign
director at the Wilderness Society.
Michael, thank you.
- Thank you guys. Nice to be with you.
- All right, so these rules touch on everything from methane
waste on public land to ecosystem restoration
to caribou herds in Alaska.
It's been a very exciting month for all of us,
and by exciting, I mean, um, lots of work,
but really, really cool stuff coming out of it.
Um, some of these rules are already in effect
and some will take effect soon.
So let's talk about 'em.
Michael, going to you first, I know I just kind
of covered this, but will you tell us
what the main rules affecting public lands are
that have come out in the past month or so?
- Wow. Uh, well, the list is long
and Justin should speak to the details,
so I will hand it over to him
as we get into the nitty gritty here.
But, uh, the BLM, I mean, first, I think the place
to start here, Kate, is really, um, with, uh, applause
and gratitude and thanks to the Biden administration
and the BLM in particular for having the vision
and the courage to step up, to actually enact
and do the process, the long process that it takes, um,
to get these new rules
and regulations in place, um,
taken together as a whole.
They amount to a significant change for the agency in terms
of focusing on conservation
and really set us up as, uh, Westerners
and across this country to really meet the challenges
of the climate crisis
and the nature crisis
that we've been facing across the West.
The rules include, uh, A BLM methane rule,
a new rule on renewables, an oil
and gas rule, the public lands rule, which is near
and dear to my heart, and been my main focus, the NPRA rule
and a number of other provisions
that they've enacted over the last few months.
So significant rulemakings across the board that will change
a lot of how the BLM approaches their management
of public lands and shift us towards, um,
a sustainable future that hopefully we can take delivery on.
- Alright, so Justin, we've talked about these things kind
of interchangeably as rule makings
or regulations from a technical standpoint,
what are these things
that have just come into effect over the last month and
and how do they, how are they created? They're not laws,
- Right?
That's that's right, Aaron.
Um, so just to, to, uh, differentiate rule
rulemaking and regulation.
So a rulemaking is the process
of creating a rule or a regulation.
Um, it's governed by the Administrative Procedure Act.
Uh, it includes a notice
and, uh, public comment period,
a response from the administration, from the agency, um,
to public comment, uh, and then finalization.
Um, and we saw these rules get finalized in the last two
weeks or so that we'll discuss today.
Um, so that's sort of the last step in
that rulemaking process.
Um, rule
and regulation, those are pretty synonymous,
interchangeable terms.
Um, but essentially what those are, um, is, uh,
that's an agency, uh, carrying out, um,
their authority as delegated by Congress.
Um, so it's how they implement statute, um,
and how they, uh, work from day to day, uh,
to, to carry out their mission.
- Uh, with all of this happening within the last month, uh,
everyone in the public lands community writ large, has
needed to specialize to, to bone up on certain rules so
that we could be talked knowledgeably about them,
especially to reporters.
Kate, you, uh, really read up on the BMS methane
and oil and gas rules.
Walk us through what they do
and that, that methane rule in particular, there was a bit
of confusion on how what BLM is doing on methane fits in
with what the EPA was also doing on
methane, roughly at the same time.
- Totally. Yeah.
Lots , lots of oil
and gas rules coming out all
around the same time is always a good idea.
Um, really makes it clear for the public .
Just kidding. Um, but I'll try to help with that.
So, um, yeah, the BLM put out a methane rule
and then a few weeks later, an oil and gas rule.
Obviously, methane is gas, um,
but the methane rule, we'll start there.
It, um, really the, the sort of groundbreaking thing
that it does is it puts a royalty on wasted natural gas.
And so when oil
and gas drillers, um, when they drill for oil,
oftentimes they hit natural gas
and it's oftentimes treated as like a waste product,
and they just sort of set it on fire
and, which is called flaring.
Um, and if you ever Dr.
Drive through like an oil and gas field in the west,
and you see those, um, pipes with flames coming out
of the top, that's a flare.
And then venting is when they just
release it directly into the air.
And the reason this is a problem is methane is a really
potent greenhouse gas.
Um, so the BBL m decided to start trying to charge companies
for the gas that they waste.
Um, now by the M'S own projections, they expect to bring in
around $50 million a year from this new
fee, which is awesome.
Um, and, um, uh,
it also will hopefully cut down on the amount of natural gas
that's wasted and encourage these companies to, um,
direct more of that gas into li like pipelines
that they can actually sell so they can sell the gas.
Um, and the this rule also included like increasing
increased, um, like detection requirements so
that companies actually have to, to
to know whether they're leaking natural gas
and methane into the atmosphere,
and then of course, charge them for it.
So how that gets implemented is, I think,
a little bit up in the air and to be seen.
But as Justin, I wanna point this out, as Justin mentioned,
um, these rulemakings are not new laws.
These are all things that the agencies are enabled
to do by current law.
And the Inflation Reduction Act actually did have this
methane fee in it.
And so this is just the agency figuring out how to, how
to comport with the inflation reduction Act.
It's not a new law. It's not, they're not going rogue.
Um, the oil
and gas rule, which followed the methane rule, is, um,
applies more to the actual act of drilling on land.
Um, and it again, codifies a lot of things
that were passed in the Inflation Reduction Act.
So again, the agency is not just creating
things out of thin air.
Um, and it did also increase bonding fees.
And bonding fees are the amount of money
that companies put up ahead of drilling.
Um, and essentially like in a security deposit, um,
that is money that can be used to clean up the well, um,
if the company goes bankrupt
or just fails to clean it up themself.
Um, so that rule is really exciting.
It raised the bonding rate
for an individual well from $10,000 to $150,000.
So that rate hadn't been updated since the 1960s.
Um, everyone who's listening knows
that things have gotten more expensive since the 1960s.
So it was just a common sense adjustment really to make sure
that we're com oil
and gas companies are cleaning up their own messes.
Um, and then quickly I'll touch on the EPA
methane rule, which you mentioned.
This rule is really exciting
because, um, the M'S Methane rule only applies
to drilling on federal public lands.
Um, the methane EPA rule, sorry, the EPA methane rule, um,
applies to all sources of methane, well, not all sources
of methane sources of methane from oil
and gas production, um, no matter where they're located.
So this could be, you know, um, on private land, state land,
um, processing facilities.
And it essentially increases the requirements
for leak detection.
So, um, they're gonna catch more of these methane leaks,
and then it increases requirements
for addressing those leaks when they're found.
Um, so that will probably have a huge impact on the amount
of methane that's being wasted
and contributing to climate change.
Um, as will the other two rules.
Oh, one other thing I wanna mention about the oil
and gas rule, um, is that it actually directs the BLM
to lease public lands for oil
and gas drilling that are already near disturbed areas
and away from important habitat and recreational areas.
So that's really just a smart way
to use our federal resources.
Um, so yeah, these rules are very exciting.
Um, and, um, we'll, we'll be looking
to see how they're implemented.
- I, I, I was gonna say that we are already seeing the
effects of the inflation reduction Act on the oil
and gas leasing program Right away.
The IRA put a $5 per acre fee
for nominating lands for leasing
before companies could nominate lands for free.
And that resulted in a whole lot of pointless nominations
of stuff that companies weren't interested in,
would never end up drilling on.
And now that companies have
to put up money on the front end, lo
and behold, nominations have fallen dramatically, um,
from the, the high in 2019
of more than 4 million acres nominated
in just one year there.
During the Trump administration during the last year,
during calendar year 2023, uh,
we saw a 98% drop in, uh,
overall nominations from the oil and gas industry.
So that alone confirms what we've been saying all along,
that the vast majority of public lands
that will ever produce oil and gas have already been leased,
and any future leasing is pretty marginal, uh, now
that companies have to put up money on the front end, uh,
to say they're interested in,
in potentially drilling on something
that has not already been leased.
- Um, Justin, going to you next.
Will you tell us about the renewable energy rule?
I know that you've been focused on that. What does it do?
- Thank you, Kate, uh, very much for the question.
Um, so, uh, back on April 11th, the Bureau
of Land Management issued its final, uh,
renewable energy rule.
Um, that rule, um, does a number of things, uh,
to reduce barriers
to responsible renewable energy deployment,
specifically wind and solar energy deployment on
federal public lands.
Um, some of the, the barriers that we've heard, uh, to,
to deployment have been that megawatt capacity fees, uh,
and acreage rents, uh, that companies have to pay
to develop on federal public lands are significantly higher
than, uh, than they are on state and private land.
Um, so this rule takes steps to, uh, to,
to lower megawatt capacity fees
and recalculate acreage rents, uh, in a way
that will ultimately reduce costs and, uh,
and spur hopefully, uh, more wind
and solar deployment on federal public lands.
Um, it also does another, uh, a few other important things,
um, like extending the rights of way leases
and grants from 30 years to 50 years, uh,
which is more in alignment with how long, uh, wind
and solar projects actually last.
Um, and it allows the Bureau of Land Management
to conduct non-competitive leases in the, uh, lowest
conflict pre-screened areas when it
is in the public interest.
Um, back in 2012, the Bureau
of Land Management identified a number
of solar energy zones, um, you know,
just over 300,000 acres worth of, of places that are,
you know, appropriate for solar energy development.
Um, and where, uh, you know, at the project level, uh,
a a solar developer can, um, begin the process to develop
and, uh, go through a kind of a streamlined process in order
to get their project up and running.
Um, you know, these places have been affirmatively confirmed
to have fewer resource conflicts, conflicts with, uh,
you know, habitats and cultural resources and, um,
and are generally places
where we really support solar development happening.
Um, but that they are subject to competitive leases.
And, and this is resulted in, you know, a lot
of cases in industry, uh, avoiding, uh, developing there
because that, that leads to upward bidding and, and,
and costs increasing.
So this, this just gives BLM the flexibility to, uh,
to reduce costs by, you know, kind of on a case
by case basis conducting, um, non-competitive auctions.
Um, so, uh, so we're really pleased to see
that we think it's going to ultimately lead to
more responsible development, uh, of solar on public lands.
Um, and we're excited to see this finalized.
Um, and like Kate mentioned, you know, many of these rules,
most actually all of these rules are, are based on,
on statute that's been enacted by Congress.
Um, this one is a piece of legis for,
is taken from legislation that's been championed
by folks on both sides of the aisle.
Um, Paul Gosar in Arizona, Mike Levin in California, um,
Martin Heinrich in New Mexico,
and previously Martha McSally, also from Arizona, um,
the Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act of,
of 2019, a provision of it enabled the secretary to,
um, to take these actions.
And that specific provision was enacted as part of, uh,
you know, year end omnibus appropriations language, uh,
in 2021.
Um, so again, happy to see it happen.
Uh, you know, it's, um, it exists in statute, uh,
this authority exists in statute,
and we're excited to see BLM move forward with it.
- Alright, let's get to, I think, what is for all
of us here, the, the big ones, certainly the most exciting
news, uh, to happen at BLM this year.
And this is the public lands rule, uh, also known
as the conservation and landscape health rule.
Michael, this ha, this has been one of your babies here
for the last however many years.
Uh, before we get into what it does
and why it's such a big deal, how are you feeling now
that this thing is over the finish line?
- Uh, tired, ? No, super excited.
I mean, this is a long time coming
and it's, it's well beyond just my tenure
engaged in this work.
I mean, this has been needed
and, um, has been advocated for since 1976 when,
uh, flipma,
the Federal Lands Policy Management Act was enacted.
Um, and the regulatory framework
for conservation wasn't built out at that time.
The rule that just passed, uh, last Thursday, uh, gives
or actually puts in place that regulatory framework
for the first time since the law was enacted.
So it's a huge effort that's happened over generations
of local communities and lawmakers
and conservationists advocating for it.
So it's a, a massive victory for the community,
but also for folks who love to recreate
and to out on BLM public lands and enjoy them.
- Alright, so what does it do?
- I think the director said it the most simply,
and we can get into the gory details,
but most simply as, yes,
- Please get into the gory de
details, that's why we're here.
All the gory details,
- We'll do it.
Uh, the director first
and foremost said, look, this protects the best,
restores the rest, and gives the agency the ability
to make smart decisions.
That's the simple answer.
The long-winded answer is just this, um, it,
for the first time directs local managers
to prioritize ecosystem and manage for ecosystem resilience.
It offers up direction on how to do that
by inventorying regularly intactness
of BLM lands, so we can understand
where are those habitat corridors,
how does the landscape fit together,
where are there developments that we need to manage around
to protect those areas?
It also calls out land health
and managing for land health standards.
So it actually directs local managers to say,
what condition is the landscape that I manage in,
and what do we need to do to actually address
that land health?
And then it offers up a couple of tools
and recommendations for how to achieve land health
and to preserve intech.
And those are areas of critical environmental concern.
Um, so identifying
and protecting areas as areas
of CRI critical environmental concern,
which the agency can do.
In fact, it's the only tool called out in flipma, um,
as a tool to be used and then litigate or, uh, restoration
and mitigation leases it
and, um, creates a tool for the agency to use,
um, for, uh, with communities to be able to restore lands
that have been degraded or to do mitigation work.
Say there's a solar development or an oil, oil
and gas development,
and they need to do compensatory mitigation
around their development.
This gives the agency the ability to do
that right on BLM lands
and to work with those folks
to do compensatory mitigation in those particular places.
So the rule itself, um, you can break it down pretty simply,
it's really giving direction to local managers so
that when they're doing planning
and developing new management schemes for the lands
that they manage, that they have the conservation tools in
their toolbox to be able
to enact conservation on those landscapes.
- Do we know yet what these restoration
and mitigation leases are gonna look like in practice once
this law, this rule goes into effect in, uh, 30 ish days?
What do we, what kind of proposals do you think we might see
in terms of restoration mitigation?
Who are the players gonna be? I
- Mean, I think you're gonna see a lot of,
and you've heard this in some of the response
to the actual announcement of the final rule,
you're gonna see a lot of local communities who have wanted
to restore their watersheds in their backyards, working
with the BLM hand in glove to take out restoration leases,
to have some certainty around the investments
that those local communities are gonna make
in restoring a watershed, for example, um,
on BLM lands.
That, that those lands aren't going
to be developed into the future, that they can work
with the agency to say, for this X amount of time, uh,
this is gonna be a restoration project
and we're gonna invest in it.
So local municipalities will be engaged in that.
I think you'll see, uh, hunting
and fishing organizations, there's already some examples
where hunting and fishing organizations across the west have
worked with the federal agencies to do restoration projects.
This just adds some more clarity around those
and certainty for those entities to do it.
State governments, I think, will be engaged in doing some
of this restoration into the future.
Um, and then, you know, ultimately there are,
is the opportunity for conservation organizations.
Say you've got your, like for example, here in Durango
where I live, uh, you have the San Juan Citizens Alliance
that worked long and hard on Hermosa Creek
and the Hermosa Creek wilderness proposal.
Well, if there's a need for restoration in the,
in the Hermosa Creek drainage, um, you could see a scenario
where local conservation organizations could work
with the agency to actually do those restoration projects.
So, um, we think that there's a lot of opportunity
around the restoration component of this,
and that it's a huge boon
for local communities across the west.
- Thank you for, for fleshing that out.
I think, I think that's one of the, the things
that folks had trouble envisioning.
So laying that out is, is really great.
Justin, I wanna bring you back in here.
Give us a sense of how,
how the public lands rule is important in context
with all of these other rules.
You've got stuff happening on renewables,
you've got responsible oil and gas rules.
So how does the conservation part of this fit in along
with everything else that we're seeing this month?
- Yeah, I, I think that there is a broader
narrative here, for sure.
And, um, and what we've noticed over the past, you know, uh,
decades, uh, you know, up to a century, is
that public lands, uh, have been, uh, managed
to prioritize extraction.
Um, there have been defacto subsidies for oil
and gas leasing and drilling on federal public lands,
you know, as far back as there's been oil and gas leasing
and drilling on publics at all.
Um, and what these rules do is they, you know,
bring the costs of oil
and gas leasing up, um, in order to account for, you know,
some of that, um, some of that defacto subsidy
and ensure that, you know, state
and federal taxpayers get a fairer return for the use
of their federal public lands.
Um, and we also see, uh, you know, some
movement in the other direction with renewable energy
to make it a little bit easier to develop, uh, you know,
wind and solar on federal public lands, putting them kind
of on a level, level or playing field.
Um, and with the conservation rule that, uh, that,
that Michael just spoke extremely eloquently about, um,
you're putting conservation on that same plane.
Um, so now all of the multiple uses, um,
that BLM lands can be used
for are on a leveler playing field.
Um, and oil and gas isn't, um, you know, placed
above any other use.
- Aaron, let me jump in on that too, just to, um, put it,
um, plainly, the BLM
and the Biden administration have quietly
put in place the regulatory tools that Americans need
to meet the climate crisis and the nature crisis head on.
Um, we haven't had the regulatory framework
and the changes that we needed to actually, uh,
address climate change on federal public lands.
What has happened over the last few months,
and we can't say it loud enough
or shout it from the rooftops enough,
has given us the ability to make public lands part
of the solution
to the climate crisis in the nature
crisis across this country.
And that thanks to the Biden administration and the BLM
- Awesome, thank you guys for putting that in, um, context
and sort of just saying it plainly for people,
because I think even I sitting here listening
and having worked on these, um, don't know if I fully
com comprehended the, the enormity of it.
So, um, appreciate that description, Aaron, going to you.
Um, one last really big thing that happened is
that the administration protected a huge
amount of land in Alaska.
Um, will you tell us a little bit about that?
I think it's the, the National Petroleum
Reserve Alaska Rule.
- Yeah. This is, uh, or also known as the NPRA.
Uh, and this is a, again, a very big deal
because the NPRA is a huge swath of Alaska,
and there are obviously parts of that that are too fragile
and too risky to drill, especially in light
of climate change, in light of permafrost melting.
So what this, uh, final rule
for the NPRA does is it sets aside 13 million acres
for permanent protection.
That is to say no leasing, uh,
no new drilling in these areas, uh,
because they are too important for subsistence uses
for Alaska native, uh, tribes,
and also for, um, for the,
the wildlife in there, for the caribou, uh, for the birds.
These are areas that are too fragile right now
and need to be permanently protected.
So 13 million acres, uh, is a, a
huge deal in terms of, uh, protecting, uh, America
and America's lands from the effects of climate change.
And then along with that NPRA rule, uh,
the Biden administration also rejected, uh, the,
what's called the Ambler Mining Road, which was a proposal,
uh, to build a $350 million 200
mile road through gates
of the Arctic National Parks and Preserve.
It would've crossed 11 rivers, would've crossed thousands
of streams in hopes that it would land terminate at
what will someday be a future mine
that hasn't actually been proposed.
But the state of Alaska is convinced there's a lot
of copper there, and they wanted to have this road in place,
uh, to allow future mining.
And the Biden administration looked at the science
and said, no way.
You cannot cross thousands
of streams without permanently harming the wildlife,
the fish, the birds through that area.
And this is a national park and preserve.
It just doesn't make sense.
Um, so saying no, once
and for all to this Ambler Mining Road is a very big deal.
And having all of this science on the record
is also an incredibly important step
because if a future administration
5, 10, 15 years down the road wanted to come in
and say, oh, no, we're doing the road,
after all, they would have to overcome all of this science
that is now in the record that BLM has has put down.
So, uh, a very big month for Alaska as well
as the, the whole rest of the country here.
- Okay. So let's talk about timing.
Um, Michael, I had this question going to you,
and maybe it makes more sense going to Justin since he deals
with Congress.
Um, but why, why are all these rules coming out right now?
What's the big rush?
- Yeah, that, that's a great question, Kate.
And you know, I, I think that, uh,
one yesterday was Earth Day, so I think
that the administration, um, thematically, uh,
probably wanted to, to center some of these announcements
around, uh, around that big milestone, uh, annual milestone.
Um, but also, uh, one thing that I know that, um,
we all need to be mindful
of is a tool called the Congressional Review Act.
Um, this is, uh, a piece of legislation that was enacted,
um, you know, back in the mid nineties, um, you know,
as part of, uh, speaker Gingrich's,
uh, contract with America.
And essentially what it allows Congress to do, um, is, uh,
delete a rule, um, by passing, uh, joint resolution
through the House and Senate, um,
and getting signed into law by the president.
Um, that last piece, uh, is interesting
because obviously we have, um,
a Democratic president right now.
Um, but the big threat is that, you know, in the event
that in January, 2025, um, you know, there is a,
a, a change in, in power, um,
a Congressional Review Act resolution could potentially be,
um, enacted on, on any, any rule that was finalized
and communicated to Congress in the, uh, 60 day,
the last 60 days of the, uh, congressional session.
That's correct. Yeah. Legislative days.
Yeah, legislative days, um, leading up to the conclusion
of the 118th Congress.
Um, so that's impossible to calculate right now, uh,
because we don't know exactly when the House
and Senate will be in session.
They do have their calendars for 2024,
but, you know, um, session weeks are often pulled down or,
or put back on the calendar.
So it's, it's a little bit of a moving target.
Um, but just making sure that these rules are finalized
and communicated to Congress, you know, beyond that window,
helps ensure that they can't be repealed should the, uh,
the political winds turn
and, uh, in, in 2025, um, look different landscape wise.
- Kate, I might just jump in on that a little bit here to,
I think it's important to remember the history
of the Biden administration, um, as to why a lot
of these rules are rolling out now.
And that history is this, when the Biden administration
and the BLM, um, started up, uh, in, at the beginning
of this last administration, they had to do a massive amount
of, uh, fixing the agency that was basically, um,
destroyed under the Trump administration with staff leaving,
and they moved the headquarters to the west
and they moved around staff and all of that type of thing.
The agency really needed to rebuild almost from scratch, um,
to get back up to speed.
That took some time.
These rulemaking efforts also take time,
and the Biden administration did it right
by making those processes long engaging.
They took in federal
or a public comment throughout those,
the public lands rule alone had a 90 day comment period,
six public meetings, uh, 200,000 comments, um,
90% of which were favorable.
But they went through those exhaustive processes on all
of these rules to make sure that they did it right.
The timing just happened to work out that a lot
of them are coming now
because they went through that entire process.
And you have the threat of the Congressional Review Act
that's looming out there.
I think that the, um, Republicans on the house
and, uh, in the Senate,
they're definitely already challenging a lot of these rules.
And we're gonna see legislation,
whether it's a Congressional Review Act legislation
or other pieces of legislation, the Public lands rule,
for example, there's a bill by Representative Curtis
that's in the house
that we understand is in the coming weeks going
to be considered on the floor, all of that we're gonna need
to defend against, to defend these rules.
Um, so they're gonna challenge them,
but a lot of the progress that we've seen has been
because the Biden administration took the time
to systematically go through the legal process for all
of this to establish these rules,
and they're all coming out right now.
- Um, while we're all here, let's go ahead
and talk about other big public
lands, things that are happening.
Um, there is an effort to, um, amend plans
to protect sage grouse habitat going on right now.
Aaron, will you tell us a little bit about that?
- Yeah, so this was in March, uh, the BLM uh,
proposed a draft version
of what's called the Sage Grouse Resource Management Plan,
which is actually a whole bunch of resource management plans
that inform how BLM does its job everywhere
there is sage grouse.
This is incredibly important
because this is something the, uh,
Obama administration tried to do back in 2015.
That plan was basically knee capped
by the Trump administration, all of that, uh,
then got tied up in court for many years, leaving
a very old plan in place.
All the while sage grouse populations keep
plummeting across the west.
And at this point, this is the last best effort, uh,
to prevent the sage grouse from being listed under the
Endangered Species Act, which is something
that everyone wants to avoid
because that would have drastic effects across the entire
West that make it hard to do just about anything.
So to prevent that, uh, you have
to save the grouse right now, you have
to stabilize those populations.
So this grouse R mps in a public comment period right now,
that comment period ends in June.
Uh, and hopefully fairly quickly
after that, you'll see a final sage grouse, RMP in place
that will help protect the bird
and prevent that Endangered Species Act listing.
Um, and then the only other, other thing I wanna flag, uh,
that Justin May be able to talk about, um, is the,
the solar program environmental
impact statement that's on the way.
- Sure. Happy to talk more about that.
Um, so on April 18th, uh, the Bureau
of Land Management concluded a 90 day public comment process
on, uh, its utility scale, uh,
solar programmatic environmental impact statement.
Um, Aaron and Kate, thanks again for, for hosting me
to speak more about this back in, uh, back in February.
Um, but essentially this is a, a long process to determine,
um, which BLM lands, uh, across 11 western states,
uh, are appropriate for, uh, solar energy applications,
which should be completely excluded from, uh, you know,
companies even being allowed to apply to build on, um,
and, uh, in determining how much acreage should be open
for, for applications.
Um, but that comment period is, is now closed.
Uh, the next step would be for the agency
to issue a final programmatic EIS, um, respond
to comments that they received over the
90 day comment period.
Um, select an alternative.
Uh, there are five alternatives that, uh,
make various levels of, uh, acreage available
for solar applications, uh, across the west.
Um, and to sign a record of decision, uh, that,
that implements the alternatives that they select.
So we expect that to happen sometime in the fall, uh, maybe,
um, but more on that hopefully soon.
- Awesome. Well, that was a lot
of public lands news for you guys.
Um, and we're, we were so lucky to have, um, Michael Carroll
and Justin Muse with the Wilderness Society
here to talk about it.
Thank you guys both, um, really appreciate your, your help
and your knowledge.
- Thank you. Thank you both.
- Hey folks, I've got a quick clarification on the National
Petroleum Reserve Alaska Rule.
Aaron said the rule will end new drilling
and leasing on around 13 million acres in the NPRA,
but actually it's a little more complicated than that.
In fact, the rule ends new leasing on 10.6 million acres,
but some of that land is already leased to oil
and gas companies
and could still be drilled just
with much higher environmental
standards created by the rule.
- Well, that is it for today, folks.
Go follow us on social media if you don't already.
Our colleague Sterling is doing a spectacular jog on TikTok
taking everything that we just talked about over the last
half hour and somehow condensing it down
to 90 seconds at a time.
It's great. Uh, also, of course,
send us your feedback podcast@westernpriorities.org.
- Thanks again to Justin and Michael for joining us today.
And thank you for listening to the landscape.