In their final weeks in office, President Barack Obama’s administration is releasing a flurry of rules that could have implications for federal land for decades to come. Most bolster the president’s conservation legacy but some do not.
These rules have been years in the making but face imperiled futures.
The Donald Trump administration could not simply erase these actions in most cases, but it could get help from the GOP-controlled Congress to either block them or prevent funding from going to implement them. It also could settle industry lawsuits and ask courts to send the rules back to the agencies to be rewritten in ways that reflect Trump’s pro-industry and fossil fuel-friendly policies. It also could restart the rulemaking process to overturn the rules but that would take significant amounts of time.
In 2014, a federal judge stopped an expansion of Colorado’s West Elk coal mine because the federal government had failed to take a “hard look” at the climate impacts from an exemption to Colorado’s roadless rule that allowed the mining.
Last week, the U.S. Forest Service released an Environmental Impact Statement that revealed its preferred alternative could increase greenhouse gas emissions 433 million tons over time and cost society billions of dollars. The pollution would come from methane vented into the air during mining and from burning federal coal to make electricity.
Administration officials plan to finalize the rule by the end of the year so that the decision is theirs and not Trumps’ appointees’.
Despite all its rhetoric about fighting climate change, this policy is an example of the Obama administration allowing more mining of the dirtiest fossil fuel in an area that would otherwise be protected from road building and other industrial development. The decision made some environmental activists furious and was part of a campaign by WildEarth Guardians, the Sierra Club and other groups to get the Obama administration to consider the greenhouse gas implications of its decisions for federal fossil fuels. “It got us riled up,” said Jeremy Nichols of WildEarth Guardians.
Robert Bonnie, the undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment, says reinstating the coal mining exception will preserve a roadless policy for Colorado that is the strongest in the nation. Colorado’s roadless rule, which was crafted by three governors and the Obama administration, preserves important forests that otherwise would be at risk, he says. These areas provide habitat to species pushed out of other areas due to climate change. “Roadless areas are part of the climate agenda too,” he adds. He concedes that the decision will gives Arch Coal a green light to do a lot more coal mining but justifies that by saying that regardless of the decision coal will be part of our energy mix for years to come.
But Earthjustice attorney Ted Zukoski said it is preposterous for Obama administration officials to keep supporting this policy given the strong and mounting evidence that the countries of the world need to keep most fossil fuels in the ground to avoid catastrophic consequences of climate change. The Obama administration officials’ refusal to rethink their decision, Zukoski said, sounds like: “We all agreed to steer the Titanic in this direction; we know there’s an iceberg ahead but we all agreed.” The final decision is expected in mid-December.
The Obama administration, which from the start aspired to open public lands to wind farms and solar power projects, in November published the first comprehensive rules for competitive leasing for renewable power.
The 442-page rule is designed to encourage development of solar and wind farms in places with good access to transmission lines and demand for power and the least conflict with other uses of public land. It does so by giving financial incentives to site projects in areas known as designated leasing areas, which have been vetted to ensure they do not contain important cultural, tribal or natural resources; do not provide habitat for rare species; and are not needed by the Defense Department. It also enshrines the rules for competitive auctions and the fees to ensure that taxpayers get a reliable return for the use of federal land for clean energy.
The Obama administration identified 700,000 acres of public land as good locations for renewable projects in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. “This rule is gong to help continue to facilitate responsible renewable energy development on public land; something that Westerners are demanding because of the economic and clean energy benefits it provides,” says Alex Duae, assistant director of energy and climate at the Wilderness Society.
The President’s Climate Action Plan calls on Interior to permit 20,000 megawatts of renewable power by 2020. Since 2009, Interior has approved 60 large renewable energy projects on public lands, including 36 solar, 11 wind and 13 geothermal projects. If built, the projects could provide 15,500 megawatts of renewable energy capacity, or enough to power approximately 5.1 million homes, according to the Bureau of Land Management. One of the biggest approved projects, for example, the Chokecherry Sierra Madre wind farm in south central Wyoming has been seeking approvals for 10 years. The company in September finally started building the main road for the first phase of its project. It still needs final approval for siting the first 500-wind turbines, but hopes to get that approval before President Obama leaves office.
“It’s an incredibly difficult process. The regulations are designed to make it easier; we’ll see,” said Bill Miller, president and CEP of the Power Company of Wyoming, a subsidiary the Anschutz Corporation. Miller is skeptical that there will be an appetite for wind projects on federal land because of all the time it takes to get approval and because there is a lot of great wind resources on private land. The BLM has prioritized solar over wind and has designated solar energy zones where there is less red tape.
Last week, Obama administration temporarily blocked new mining claims on approximately 30,000 acres of U.S. Forest Service land near the northern entrance of Yellowstone National Park. “There are good places to mine for gold, but the doorstep of Yellowstone National Park is not one of them,” said Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.
The ban will be in effect for two years, while the Departments of Interior and Agriculture evaluate whether to withdraw this land from new mining claims for an additional two decades. Only Congress can permanently ban mining.
It is unclear how a Trump administration will approach this issue. Local businesses are hopeful that he will listen to their concerns. They joined together to press for action because they see gold mining as a threat to their livelihoods and lifestyles, and celebrated the announcement with a lunch in late November. “Then it will be boots on the ground because we’ve got to get legislation passed, and we’ve got to start tomorrow,” said Tracy Raich, a real estate agent who sells ranches in the area.
