Heidi Kyser, Desert Report
With public lands rollback after rollback, it is almost unbelievable how blatantly the Trump administration carried out its agenda of prioritizing polluter profits over people. When Trump’s Interior Department signed the proclamation gutting protections for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monuments, people from San Juan County, Utah, to the East Coast mobilized to fight back. Immigrant rights and conservation groups sued to stop the border wall construction that has torn apart communities, kept public lands from their intended use, and destroyed wildlife habitat. Coalitions of Indigenous Nations, conservationists, and border communities spent four years defending against the Trump administration’s endless attacks. Their tireless advocacy has shown elected officials that environmental activists expect a different, better path forward.
When it comes to the management of public lands, wildlife, and waters, environmental advocates have demanded a plan that focuses on strengthening safeguards, ambitious climate action, and ensuring that future generations will be able to enjoy our public lands. When the Biden administration takes office, our leaders should follow through on the conservation and climate efforts that have been blocked by the Trump administration and the Republicans who have followed suit.
Thankfully, this year’s military budget debates in Congress showed that when it comes to conservation, we have real fighters who want to see climate and environmental justice in this country, and preservation of our natural world for future generations.
In the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), congressional leaders worked to address the discrimination present in the outdoors and our public spaces. Congress passed a provision to rename military bases currently named after Confederate military and political leaders. For too long, many American military bases have been named after the people who fought for white supremacy and against the ideals we strive for. Coalitions of racial justice organizations, communities, and outdoors groups fought to change this—and Congress heard them.
And in another win for a strong coalition of Tribal Nations, Nevadans, and conservationists, the Fallon and Nellis military sites received status quo extensions for the next 25 years, which means they cannot take up any extra acres for bomb testing and other damaging activities that would leave an irreversible scar on these landscapes. While these places deserve permanent protection, this is a huge step toward defending the Desert National Wildlife Refuge and other public lands, and all of their natural and cultural richness.
On the other side of the fight for justice and the environment is President Trump. Right now, Trump is threatening to veto the NDAA if the provision to remove Confederate names from military bases is included. The veto threat is the latest example of Trump’s public defense of the Confederacy and Confederate icons around the country. It fits into a troubling pattern of Trump enthusiastically selling off national monuments like Bears Ears to dirty fuel interests, but happily defending racist Confederate memorials. Trump’s hateful politics and irrational ego cannot overpower our need to work toward a more just society—one where we can tackle the climate crisis and offer a better future for those who come after us.
And Republicans in Congress are doing his anti-conservation bidding, too. They stopped millions of more acres of recreation areas, critical habitat, and waters from gaining protections through the NDAA.
Earlier this year, conservation-minded decision-makers penned an NDAA that included protections for more than half a million acres of recreation areas and critical habitat in Colorado, wilderness, wild and scenic rivers, California public lands, and the Wild Olympics in Washington State.
This year has made us even more aware of the damaging and tragic effects of climate change, and how climate disruption is a huge risk to our national security. Champions in Congress were ready to take action by including these public lands protections because activists pushed them to listen to the science, which says that we must protect 30 percent of lands and waters in the United States by 2030 to slow climate disruption. The protections offered in the original NDAA would have made major progress toward achieving that goal. But Donald Trump and Republicans have once again failed on conservation and climate action.
And to make it worse, Republicans blocked a provision to pass a permanent mining ban on public lands surrounding the Grand Canyon. That opens the door for corporations to pollute the lands and waters that surrounding communities and Tribal Nations have depended on for centuries. It is glaringly clear that Republicans are more interested in making it easier for corporations to open these precious places for extraction.
We worked hard to elect an administration that would offer a fresh start. The Biden-Harris administration has a chance to protect these places. Passing the Protecting America’s Wilderness Act—the lands protections stripped from the NDAA by Republicans—and implementing a permanent mining ban near the Grand Canyon should be a priority for the new Congress and President-Elect Biden.
So instead of dwelling on the tragic mismanagement that public lands, forests, and endangered species endured these last four years, we can take steps today to protect public health and our environment. Let’s push our elected officials to make it happen in the first days of Biden’s presidency.