Biden’s Leasing Ban Threatens Public Lands Conservation

Western Energy Alliance hosted a livestream discussion with former United States Senator Cory Gardner to talk about the impacts President Biden’s ban on oil and natural gas leasing will have on public lands conservation funding.
 
Last year, Sen. Gardner co-authored and helped pass the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA), which relies almost exclusively on royalties paid from oil and natural gas production on public lands and waters to fund $2.8 billion in conservation. The money reduces the National Park Service’s maintenance backlog, permanently funds the popular Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), and repairs infrastructure on other public lands. Because of a compromise forged by Sen. Gardner on competing public lands bills, GAOA was signed into law by President Trump last August.
 
The following are excerpts from the conversation with Sen. Gardner. 

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The Great American Outdoors Act was one of your signature accomplishments. You put a lot of work into that and you helped get it passed. Can you tell us a little bit about what it does?

“I think everybody who works in the industry understands the important responsibility of being good stewards of the land they’re working with. One of the incredible opportunities we have in energy is to use that natural resource we’re developing – that oil or that gas – and to take some of those dollars we generate and put it back into the same land for conservation. So it really is the use of a resource for the conservation of a resource. I think it’s one of the smartest things we’ve ever done in terms of energy policy and in terms of natural resource policy."

​“The Land and Water Conservation Fund and this idea that would help support our national parks and catch up with the national backlogs were to sort of ideas that seemed to be getting a lot of attraction. I had been a sponsor on the Land and Water Conservation Fund and a sponsor on the national parks bill. And you could tell that standing alone there wasn’t the support for either. The politics of the moment or the coalitions that weren’t quite lined up to get one passed.
 
“I think it was General Eisenhower who once said, ‘How do you solve a big problem? Well, you solve a big problem by making it even larger.’ So what we did was combine the two together and had a larger bill with a bigger impact, and that is actually the bill that got 70, nearly 75 votes in the United States Senate to pass. I think it’s a signature accomplishment for this country, and really it’s only possible because of the people who work with our resources who then turn around and put it into more resource conservation. That’s the only reason it can happen.”

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland just announced a $1.6 billion distribution under the Great American Outdoors Act to various states, national parks, and public lands conservation. How do you think it’s working one year in?

​“I think it’s going well. There were some concerns early on that there was not enough dollars going out. Obviously, this is implementing the most significant infusion of dollars into our public lands, thanks to energy development, since Teddy Roosevelt, if not before Teddy Roosevelt served, in terms of the shear size of the dollars going into it. So it was going to take a little bit of time to implement.

“What I want to make sure happens is that it’s spread out around the country, that it’s accomplishing the goal we set out for it. There are areas in the Western Slope of Colorado, campgrounds that I saw, forest service areas, and of course our national parks that are going to need some of this. But it ought to be more than preserving and keeping people out. We need to make sure it’s utilized to bring people in. To increase access, to get people to enjoy our lands. Those who otherwise wouldn’t have a chance to get out and see it. They need to be able to have that opportunity. I think that’s what these dollars can be used for. In Colorado that means a quarter of a billion dollars that can be coming back to the state thanks to this legislation.”

Is there much oversight of Land and Water Conservation Fund grants once they go out to the states for local programs like environmental justice projects?

​“That was one of the big obstacles we had to passage was talking about how the funds were going to be used, how that oversight was going to work. And then you had counties, my gosh there’s counties in Colorado where 96% of the county is already owned by the state and federal governments. They’re very concerned. They don’t just provide share of services for the 4% that is still owned by the private sector. No. They have to provide emergency services and fire services to 100% of the county. So they were very worried about that. We had to make sure we put in some commonsense oversight and safeguards on that.”

“This is a trust, right. This is a trust between the energy industry, that if they produce this and they pay the tax, that those dollars are going to go back into conservation of the resource. That was a promise that was made by the government. It was a promise made by the energy industry to be a part of this. It’s a promise to the American people and that has to be fulfilled and upheld, and that is why oversight is so important.”

Right now, the Biden Administration is threatening the basic source of funds for conservation. When you look at it, contributions from coal are there, though much lower than from oil and natural gas. After that the funds the funds dry up; 100% for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

“Absolutely. Again, this Great American Outdoors Act, with the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the Restore Our Parks Act combined into one, is the crown jewel of our conservation programs. The Biden Administration, by destroying oil and gas, will gut the most significant conservation accomplishment since Teddy Roosevelt. Certainly, in the last 40 or 50 years if you don’t want to go back that far. This is an incredible, I think, malpractice on behalf of the administration to fundamentally gut the key conservation accomplishment of many, many Congresses. 

“I think there’s a couple of ways we should address this. When the Biden Administration wants to stop leasing or ban fracking or to do something like that, there ought to be a fiscal note attached to it so we know the impact on conservation that decision will have. In the State of Colorado, if you introduce a piece of legislation, that piece of legislation will have what’s called a fiscal note. That fiscal note will say it will cost $10,000 to implement this program. It’s going to cost $500,000 to implement this program. We ought to have a fiscal note on every decision that impacts those tax dollars being paid into the Great American Outdoors Act to know that executive order, that piece of legislation, that contract that you just denied will cost this country in terms of conservation ‘X’ many millions of dollars. I think that’s the real story that we need to start pushing because a cut to oil and gas is cutting our own selves from a strong conservation future.”

​When we’re subsidizing wind and solar production, is there any way they’ll turn around and fill in the $2.8 billion that oil and natural gas contributes to conservation annually?

​“This is paid for. That’s the beauty of this program. I mean this is paid for by the hardworking people in oil and gas who are developing this resource. They make the investment, they find the resource, they pay the tax, and it goes into conservation. How many other programs can you say are paid for in this country? You could say our roads and bridges are paid for. No. Some of it’s paid for with the gas tax, but there’s tremendous amount of deficit spending that still occurs in infrastructure even though it’s partially offset by a gas tax or something. This is paid for by oil and gas, this conservation.”

​Is there something the industry can do to help advance the conversation on conservation?

​“Yeah, I think you’re doing it each and every day when you’re developing the resources. We need to be proud of that. Maybe every single oil rig or gas well should have a sign on it that says collectively how much that resource has contributed to conservation. Or maybe not that particular well itself, but you know the five wells in the area or the 20 wells that are owned by that landowner, what that has meant for conservation. Just to show it. 

“We have to be proud of the work that we do. When someone is out on that trail that is made possible by the Land and Water Conservation Fund and they’re supporting a ban on energy development, it’s a non sequitur. It makes no sense. You need to be able to connect the dots because if it weren’t for that, the trail wouldn’t be there, it wouldn’t happen.”
 
“It’s pointing out the work you do, and it’s point out what happens if Biden’s ban were to succeed. For every decision he makes to stop access, how that’s going to hurt a national park, how that’s going to hurt the national forest or the Bureau of Land Management. I think that’s a connection that needs to be made.”