by Brian Beffort, Toiyabe Chapter Director
Enough is enough! No more oil & gas leasing in Nevada! Under the Trump Administration’s “Energy First” policy, oil & gas leasing has expanded dramatically. More than one million acres of your public lands in Nevada have been offered up to the fossil fuel industry for exploration. Many of these parcels are immediately adjacent to some of the states most spectacular places like Ruby Lakes National Wildlife Refuge (shown here), Great Basin National Park, the Ruby Mountains, the South Fork Band of the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone, and numerous wilderness areas and wilderness study areas. Many parcels are directly on critical sage grouse habitat and mule deer migration corridors.
In the past two years, Nevada’s BLM has offered more than 1.4 million acres in oil and gas sales but so far has only sold 10 percent of those acres; the majority at the minimum bid of $2 an acre. Whether they lease or not, responding to and processing these lease sales requires enormous amounts of BLM, Forest Service, and Nevada Department of Wildlife staff time-- and thus your tax dollars.
The history of oil and gas exploration in Nevada shows convincingly that Nevada doesn’t have much oil. According to the BLM, the oil and gas industry on public lands in Nevada contributed $3.1 million in total economic output in FY 2018 – far less than the resources spent processing expressions of interest to drill, and not counting impacts to our habitat and other resources by exploration activities.
But even if Nevada were replete with oil, it’s time to #KeepItInTheGround.
Climate disruption threatens the state with increasing droughts, heat waves, severe storms, decreasing agricultural productivity, more frequent and severe wildfires, a broader geographic reach and season for many diseases, and declining snowpack and water availability. Over the last two years, Reno and Las Vegas have ranked as the two fastest-warming cities in the country. Las Vegas had at least 147 heat exposure deaths in 2017. It is a danger to future generations to continue drilling Nevada’s public lands for oil and gas.
In contrast to federal efforts to drill, drill, drill, the state of Nevada has taken bold steps to divest from fossil fuels in our energy and economy. In his “State of the State” speech on January 16, new Governor Steve Sisolak said, “I will not spend a single second debating the reality of climate change. Climate change is real, and it’s irresponsible to ignore the science that proves it.”
Honoring this commitment to climate action, the Nevada Legislature passed—and Sisolak signed—numerous pieces of legislation: to increase Nevada’s renewable energy to 50 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050; to document carbon emissions across all sectors, and recommend policies that could put Nevada on a pathway to zero carbon emissions by 2050; to increase electric vehicle infrastructure and replace diesel school buses with electric; and to increase low-income access to solar power, to name the most significant bills.
Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto has introduced S. 258, the Ruby Mountains Protection Act, (see WOW which would permanently withdraw approximately 450,000 acres of Forest Service lands from oil & gas leasing in the Ruby Mountains and nearby Humboldt Range. Unfortunately, the September and October sale has BLM parcels immediately adjacent on the auction block.
The Sierra Club is working hard to end oil & gas leasing on public lands in Nevada, and to transition our economy to one based on clean, healthy, environmentally sound renewable energy. The Administration’s backward-leaning fossil-fuel leasing push is the last gasps of a dinosaur economy based on toxic fossil fuels. With your help, we can stop them.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
1. Wherever you live, sign this petition opposing upcoming oil & gas leases in Nevada.
2. Join Sierra Club on the ground for a Southern Nevada Citizen Science National Public Lands Day. (For details on this Mormon Mesa driving tour and camp out see Outings, p. 12.) If you’re interested, contact Our Wild America Organizer Christian Gerlach at Christian.Gerlach@Sierraclub.org or 702-271-6485.
3. Nevadans, write Governor Steve Sisolak, using this link here. Ask him to use his powers to protect Nevada’s wildlife, habitat, water, and outdoor recreation over give-aways to fossil fuel companies. If you would like more ideas about how to get involved, contact Christian Gerlach at the information above.