Report: President Biden’s final year on public lands

Jan 10, 2025

Issue: 30x30, Conservation, Land Protection

Subject: 30x30, antiquities act, conservation, National Monuments, public lands

By Lauren Bogard

The culmination of four years of progress cements President Biden’s legacy as the greatest conservation president in modern history

On January 20, 2025, Joe Biden’s presidency will come to a close. Since his inauguration exactly four years earlier, he has raised the bar on what a president can accomplish in a single term on conservation, public lands, clean energy, and strengthening collaboration with Tribal nations.

2024 was the culmination of years of work for the Biden administration on public lands, including the completion of several high priority rulemakings related to federal oil and gas leasing and bonding, renewable energy development, bringing conservation on par with other uses of public lands, regulating methane emissions, and protecting millions of acres in Alaska from future drilling and mining.

One of the most significant highlights of the past year is President Biden’s use of the authority granted by the Antiquities Act to designate and expand national monuments. In January 2025, Biden announced the Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands National Monuments in California, pushing the total number of acres he protected using the Antiquities Act to 4,469,201 (including the restoration of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments) and establishing his legacy as the most consequential conservation president in modern history.

President Biden’s use of the Antiquities Act to restore and designate new national monuments established the Moab to Mojave Conservation Corridor, the largest corridor of protected lands in the continental United States. He also used the Antiquities Act to create several new cultural monuments that acknowledge pivotal events in American history, such as the 1908 Springfield Race Riot and the shameful legacy of federal Indian boarding schools, among others.

The Biden administration’s record on protecting America’s marine and coastal areas is also worthy of celebration, and includes the establishment of three new national marine sanctuaries, including the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary off California’s Central Coast that was designated in October, 2024. This effort was led by the Northern Chumash Tribe for over 40 years, and it is the first Indigenous-proposed sanctuary in the United States. In his first year in office, President Biden restored the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument after it was illegally downsized by the Trump administration (along with the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah which he also restored on the same day). In January 2025, President Biden banned new oil and gas leasing on 625 million acres of the Outer Continental Shelf.

As we have for the past three years, the Center for Western Priorities reviewed the accomplishments of the Biden administration’s record on public lands this past year to highlight the most consequential actions. Our analysis incorporates these final actions in the context of the administration’s record overall on conservation and wildlife protection, fossil fuels, renewable energy, and organizational or administrative changes.

30×30: How far did he get?

During his first week in office, President Biden signed an executive order on “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad” that included the national goal of protecting 30 percent of America’s lands and waters by 2030, a step that scientists say is necessary to prevent the worst effects of climate change and biodiversity collapse. This executive order laid the groundwork for the president’s America the Beautiful initiative directing federal agencies to develop plans to support locally-led efforts to conserve and restore America’s public lands and waters.

Over the past four years, he made significant progress toward the 30×30 goal. Now, at the end of his presidency, Biden has protected more federal land and waters than any other president — about 674 million acres.

He set the tone early and stuck the landing

In his first year in office, President Biden restored the original boundaries of two Utah national monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, that were significantly reduced from their original size by President Trump, an illegal action that was universally unpopular with the public.

Across all four years, President Biden used the Antiquities Act to protect 2,452,612 acres of public lands as new national monuments. Including his restoration of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, this number increases to 4,469,201 acres of public land protected using the Antiquities Act. In total, he used his authority under the Antiquities Act 15 times.

In his fourth year, President Biden stuck the landing on conservation. He solidified his legacy of protecting more public land than any other recent president in a single term, and made significant progress toward the national goal of protecting 30 percent of America’s lands and waters by 2030.

National monuments

In the final year of his presidency, Biden used the Antiquities Act a total of seven times to protect nearly one million acres of public land. Most recently, in January 2025, he designated Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands National Monuments in California. With these designations, President Biden has protected more public land in a single term using the Antiquities Act than any other president in recent history.

In Southern California, Chuckwalla National Monument protects over 620,000 acres of fragile desert ecosystem just south of Joshua Tree National Park. The monument is named for the chuckwalla lizard, a native species found in the region. Establishing this monument helps ensure equitable access to nature for local communities, as well as safeguard biodiversity, wildlife habitat, and critical wildlife migration corridors. The area holds cultural, natural, and spiritual significance for Indigenous peoples, including seven Tribes that advocated for the designation.

The establishment of Chuckwalla National Monument also completes the largest corridor of protected lands in the continental United States, which covers nearly 18 million acres stretching approximately 600 miles. This new Moab to Mojave Conservation Corridor protects wildlife habitat and a wide range of natural and cultural resources along the Colorado River, across the Colorado Plateau, and into the deserts of California. The corridor is vitally important to Tribal Nations and Indigenous peoples who have traveled across this landscape since time immemorial.

Sáttítla Highlands National Monument protects more than 224,000 acres of water-rich and culturally significant land important to the Pit River Nation. The monument comprises the upper reaches of the Medicine Lake Highlands and boasts unique geology formed by volcanoes. The area also serves as a giant freshwater aquifer, storing snowmelt that provides water for millions of Californians.

In May 2024, Biden expanded California’s Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument to include Molok Luyuk, an almost 14,000-acre area sacred to the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation. Molok Luyuk — which means Condor Ridge in the Patwin language — serves as a vital wildlife corridor and contains some of California’s most fascinating geologic formations and plant species.

On the same day, he expanded the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument near Los Angeles to include an additional 106,000 acres. The expansion protects some of the most accessible public lands for over 18 million people in Greater Los Angeles. Known as the gateway to the Angeles National Forest, the area received more visitors than either Grand Canyon or Yosemite national parks in 2021. President Biden’s expansion of the monument will also increase the total number of people living within five miles of the monument by 750,000.

Honoring cultural landmarks

President Biden also designated a number of cultural monuments in his fourth year. In August 2024, he designated the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument in Springfield, Illinois, advancing racial justice by recognizing the horrific event as an important piece of American history and acknowledging its ongoing legacy. Thousands of local and national activists, including the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), campaigned for the designation of the national monument for decades.

In December 2024, Biden designated Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument in Pennsylvania. The monument recognizes one of the darkest chapters in American history — the forced separation of Indigenous children from their families and government oppression of Native American languages and cultures.

Biden used the Antiquities Act again in December 2024 to designate Frances Perkins National Monument, honoring the nation’s first female cabinet secretary and an architect of the New Deal. The monument, which protects 57 acres along the Damariscotta River in Newcastle, Maine, comes a decade after the site was first recognized as a national historic landmark.

These cultural monuments were a strong finish to his term — adding to his record of celebrating America’s diverse cultural history that started with his July 2023 designation of Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, which spans three sites in Illinois and Mississippi.

Other big conservation achievements

In addition to new national monuments, President Biden made significant conservation progress in other ways. In May 2024, the Bureau of Land Management finalized the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule, commonly known as the Public Lands Rule. The rule received robust support from the public, with 92 percent of comments encouraging BLM to adopt the rule largely as written or strengthen its conservation measures.

The rule puts conservation on equal footing with other uses of public lands, including oil and gas drilling, mining, and grazing — as outlined in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. One of the ways it does this is by establishing restoration and mitigation leases. Restoration leases provide greater clarity for the BLM to work with appropriate partners to restore degraded lands, while mitigation leases provide a way for developers to offset their impacts by investing in land health elsewhere on public lands, like they currently do on state and private lands. The rule also clarifies the designation process and management of Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs).

After much anticipation, April 2024 marked the launch of conservation.gov, a beta version of the American Conservation and Stewardship Atlas, which tracks the conservation status of public, state, and private lands across the U.S. The Atlas includes an interactive map that will be an important resource for federal, state, and local governments, communities, and advocacy groups to track progress toward the national goal of protecting 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.

Successes for wildlife and biodiversity

In October 2024, the Biden administration made history by approving the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary — the third-largest marine sanctuary in the U.S. and the first to be requested by Indigenous people. Encompassing 4,543 square miles of central California coastline, it is managed by the Northern Chumash Tribe in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other Indigenous groups in the area. Its designation as a marine sanctuary protects an internationally significant ecological transition zone that is home to a diverse ecosystem including many at-risk species, such as snowy plovers, southern sea otters, leatherback sea turtles, black abalone, and blue whales.

President Biden created six new national wildlife refuges during his presidency. Most recently, in December 2024, the Biden administration established Southern Maryland Woodlands National Wildlife Refuge, protecting wildlife habitat and expanding outdoor recreation opportunities for 10 million people who visit, live, and work in the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan region. The new refuge is starting with a 31-acre parcel, the first of several donations to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In January 2025, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it will expand the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Florida and Georgia by up to 22,000 acres. The Okefenokee Swamp is one of the world’s largest natural freshwater ecosystems, and the wildlife refuge consists of more than 400,000 acres — the largest wildlife refuge east of the Mississippi River. The refuge’s undisturbed peat beds store valuable information on environmental conditions over the past 5,000 years and are a significant source of information for climate-related changes in the environment. The proposed expansion received robust public support, and the announcement comes at a pivotal time, as a mining company is seeking to establish a titanium dioxide mine at the refuge’s doorstep.

A month prior, in December 2024, the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge was nominated to join the UNESCO World Heritage List — a list of places around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity.

Finalizing reforms to a rigged system for oil, gas, and coal

New rules for a new approach to fossil fuels

In his fourth year in office, President Biden finalized some long-awaited and important reforms to the federal oil and gas leasing system. These moves helped enhance the return to American taxpayers for the use of public resources and strengthened the transition to clean energy while safeguarding the health of our air, water, and public lands. Most of these rules were finalized with the Congressional Review Act deadline in mind (around August 1, 2024) in order to fortify them against potential attempts by the incoming Trump administration or anti-public lands members of Congress to overturn them.

The epicenter for many of these rules and reforms is the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Interior department agency responsible for overseeing the nation’s onshore mineral development and leasing on federal lands. In April 2024, the BLM finalized the Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Rule, adding long-overdue updates to the federal oil and gas leasing system. The rule increases the minimum bond amount from $10,000 to $150,000, making sure companies, rather than taxpayers, have the money to pay for reclamation after drilling is finished. The rule helps protect wildlife and important cultural sites by requiring the BLM to identify areas better suited for extraction — specifically, those that are close to existing infrastructure or have high potential for oil and gas production. The rule increased the minimum royalty rate from 12.5 percent to 16.67 percent, as well as the minimum amount companies can bid at auctions for federal oil and gas leases to $10 per acre (up from $2 per acre). A sentiment analysis conducted by the Center for Western Priorities found that over 99 percent of the public comments on the rule encouraged the Interior department to adopt the rule largely as written.

In March 2024, the BLM finalized its Methane Waste Rule, requiring oil and gas companies to reduce venting and flaring of methane, fix leaks, and reimburse taxpayers when companies waste this powerful greenhouse gas rather than capturing it and sending it to American homes.

The Biden administration increased protections for 13 million acres of Special Areas in Alaska in April 2024 with the finalization of the Management and Protection of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A) Rule. The NPR-A Rule recognizes and protects traditional subsistence uses by Tribal and Indigenous communities, and provides a process by which the BLM is required to conduct an evaluation at least once every five years to determine if existing protections in the Special Areas are sufficient and whether to identify and designate new Special Areas. Existing oil and gas operations will not be affected, but future oil and gas development will be allowed only if it will have no or minimal adverse effect on resources in the Special Areas.

In November 2024, the BLM finalized a plan to end future coal leasing of about 1.7 million acres of Montana’s public land in the Powder River Basin. The decision will help limit greenhouse gas emissions from coal production to align with the national initiative to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. In its decision, the BLM referenced the findings from its analysis that coal markets are expected to continue declining.

Long-awaited mineral withdrawals

Several mineral withdrawals were completed throughout the Biden administration, including three high-profile ones in 2023 banning drilling on federal land near Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico, mining in the Superior National Forest near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota, and new uranium mining within the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni — Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument in Arizona. In April 2024, the Biden administration finalized a mineral withdrawal protecting more than 200,000 acres of national public land in Colorado’s Thompson Divide. The 20-year mineral withdrawal will prevent new mining or oil and gas activity in the area but will not impact existing active leases within the withdrawal boundaries. Over 73,500 public comments were submitted in support of a mineral withdrawal in the Thompson Divide.

One of the administration’s final and most significant actions related to offshore oil and gas development came in January 2025, when President Biden banned new leasing on 625 million acres of the Outer Continental Shelf. The ban will affect the entire Eastern Seaboard, the Pacific Coast of California, Oregon, and Washington, the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, and the Northern Bering Sea. The withdrawal represents the largest in U.S. history, and will protect coastal communities, marine ecosystems, and local economies from oil spills and other impacts of offshore drilling. While President-elect Donald Trump has promised to reverse this action legal experts say it will not be easily undone.

Finalizing the groundwork for a transition to clean energy

Creating a roadmap for solar and wind energy projects

The administration got to work immediately to lay the groundwork for a large-scale transition to renewable energy sources, setting a national goal to reduce emissions by 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. In April 2024, the Biden administration announced it surpassed the goal set forth in the Energy Act of 2020 of permitting 25 gigawatts of clean energy on public lands by 2025. Since Biden took office in January 2021, the BLM has approved 45 renewable energy projects on public lands with a total capacity of more than 33 gigawatts — enough to power over 15 million homes.

Also in April 2024, the BLM released its final Renewable Energy Rule, which updates regulations to incentivize and expedite wind and solar energy development on national public lands. The rule is intended to lower consumer energy costs and the cost of developing solar and wind projects, improve renewable energy project application processes, and incentivize developers to continue responsibly developing solar and wind projects on public lands.

In addition to finalizing the renewable energy rule, the BLM finished the year strong with the release of the updated Western Solar Plan in December 2024. It updates the 2012 Western Solar Plan developed by the Obama administration by adding five additional states (Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming) and makes more than 31 million acres of public lands across eleven Western states available for potential solar development. The Western Solar Plan provides a framework for responsible solar development by offering guidance for siting solar energy proposals in areas with fewer resource conflicts. The plan is intended to support the goal of achieving a 100-percent clean electricity grid by 2035 and will help lower energy costs for consumers, create good-paying jobs, tackle the climate crisis, and advance environmental justice priorities across the West.

The administration was busy advancing offshore wind energy as well, approving eleven commercial-scale offshore wind energy projects over the course of Biden’s presidency. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the agency that oversees offshore leasing, has held six offshore wind lease auctions since 2022, including a record-breaking $4.37 billion in winning bids for the New York Bight offshore wind lease sale, and the first-ever offshore lease sales for the Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and Gulf of Maine coasts. The administration approved the SouthCoast Wind Project, which will cover approximately 127,388 acres south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, Massachusetts, in December 2024. The project is expected to generate up to 2.4 GW of offshore wind energy for Massachusetts and Rhode Island, enough to power more than 840,000 homes.

Transmission lines to add new energy capacity to the grid

A necessary part of the clean energy transition is increasing transmission capacity to move renewable energy from where it is produced to where it is needed. The Biden administration finalized the long-awaited SunZia Southwest Transmission Project in May 2023, which will transport up to 4,500 megawatts of primarily renewable energy from New Mexico to markets in Arizona and California when it is completed in 2026. The transmission line’s route was challenged by the Tohono O’odham Nation, the San Carlos Apache Tribe, and environmental groups, but in April 2024 a federal judge ruled that the legal challenge was several years too late and affirmed that the BLM complied with its obligation under the National Historic Preservation Act to identify culturally significant properties in the valley and consider measures to mitigate potential harms.

Another high-profile transmission line that received approval in September 2024 is the Greenlink West Transmission Project in Nevada. In conjunction with the also approved Libra Solar Project, it will provide up to 4.7 gigawatts of clean energy, enough to power nearly 5 million homes. Greenlink West became the fourth new transmission line approval completed during the Biden administration, along with SunZia, TransWest Express Transmission Project, and Ten West Link.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) released a final rule updating planning and funding requirements for the nation’s electric grid in May, 2024. The rule will help add thousands of miles of new high-voltage power lines by clarifying guidance for how they are planned and funded, and make it easier to add more wind and solar energy to the grid at a time when additional capacity is badly needed. Owners of transmission facilities and infrastructure will now be required to plan 20 years ahead, consider a broader set of benefits, and take into account factors including anticipated changes to the mix of energy sources, renewable energy requirements in different states, and weather risks. The new rule also addresses who pays for new transmission capacity. Some states that would host transmission lines but are unenthusiastic about renewable energy have argued that they should not have to pay to help other states achieve their renewable energy goals, effectively giving individual states veto power over multistate transmission proposals. The new rule provides guidelines for developing cost-allocation formulas to help overcome these objections.

Organizational change and transformative leadership at Interior

In addition to setting a new agenda for public lands, the White House and federal agencies had the necessary but unsavory task of undoing the damage done during the first Trump administration. The Biden team also had to rebuild morale and capacity within federal agencies like the BLM after Trump relocated the headquarters of the agency from Washington, D.C. to Grand Junction, Colorado, effectively forcing many workers to quit.

One of the most pivotal actions taken by President Biden was nominating New Mexico Congresswoman Deb Haaland to serve as both the first Indigenous cabinet member and Secretary of the Interior. As Secretary, Haaland has elevated the priorities and perspectives of Native Americans in all activities across the department. In addition, Chuck Sams became the first person of Native American heritage to serve as the Director of the National Park Service. The Biden administration also brought back the annual White House Tribal Nations Conference that was held during the Obama administration to meet and hear directly from Tribal leaders across the country, a tradition that was halted under the first Trump administration.

Shortly after beginning her tenure as Secretary, Haaland launched the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, a comprehensive effort to recognize the troubled legacy of federal Indian boarding school policies to address their intergenerational impact and to shed light on the traumas of the past. In 2023, she and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland completed “The Road to Healing,” a two-year listening tour that included twelve stops across the country to hear from those impacted by the harmful and violent legacy of Indian Boarding Schools. What started as a healing tour ended with the designation of a new national monument, the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument in Pennsylvania, which President Biden established on December 9, 2024.

Secretary Haaland and others within the Biden administration made a concerted effort to strengthen and improve Tribal consultation efforts and Tribal co-management of public lands. Since the beginning of the Biden administration, 400 new Tribal co-management agreements have been signed, including 69 new agreements in 2024.

One of the most high-profile examples of Tribal co-management in action is the final management plan for Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. After years of collaborative work between the five Tribal Nations of the Bears Ears Commission (BEC), the BLM, the U.S. Forest Service, and public stakeholders, the Proposed Resource Management Plan and Final Environmental Impact Statement was released in October 2024. The monument covers 1.36 million acres of public land in southeastern Utah and is considered one of the most critical cultural landscapes in the United States. The proposed plan, if approved, would ensure lasting protections for the monument’s cultural and natural resources, including ancestral cliff dwellings and culturally significant landscapes, while also providing continued opportunities for outdoor recreation such as hiking, camping, and hunting.

President Biden made a historic commitment in January 2021, setting a goal that 40 percent of the overall benefits of key federal climate and clean energy investments would flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution, commonly known as the “Justice40 Initiative.” He went even further in April 2023, signing Executive Order 14096, “Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All”, which affirms that every American is entitled to “an environment that is healthy, sustainable, climate-resilient, and free from harmful pollution and chemical exposure.”

The Biden-Harris administration also launched the American Climate Corps in September 2023 to put more than 20,000 young people on career pathways in the growing fields of clean energy, conservation, and climate resilience. The American Climate Corps is a workforce training and service initiative that focuses on equity and environmental justice to train the next generation of climate leaders.

Conclusion

Over the last four years President Biden has demonstrated what can be accomplished when a president makes conservation and the climate priorities of their administration. He leaves office having protected more acres of federal lands and waters and having permitted more clean energy development than any other president.

Despite his already stellar record of achievement, President Biden and his team are working until the 11th hour to initiate as many policies and reforms for public lands as possible before leaving office. Though the fate of some of these actions will be determined by the incoming Trump administration, it is still important to move the ball down the field in the time that is left.

The Biden administration proposed a 20-year ban on oil, gas, and geothermal development in Nevada’s Ruby Mountains at the end of December 2024, but a final decision on the mineral withdrawal will come during the Trump administration. A federal judge overturned Biden’s pause on approvals of new liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminals in July, requiring the Department of Energy to restart the review process for exports of LNG. In December 2024 the DOE released an updated study on exports and announced a 60-day comment period.

Unfortunately, much of this progress will come under fire when Trump takes office on January 20, 2025. Defending this work, while continuing to push for conservation wins at the local and state level, will be important over the next four years.

Thankfully, the Biden administration worked deliberately and methodically to make legally-binding and lasting changes, prioritizing climate action and conservation across many arms of government. While it took years for many of these efforts to come to fruition, they will not be easily undone.

Finally, the Biden administration has provided a road map for future presidents to follow. For example, the administration began work to reform America’s 150-year-old hardrock mining law as well as to protect old-growth forests from logging. While Biden was unable to get these over the finish line, a future president can and should pick up where the Biden administration left off.

Thanks to Biden’s example, future presidents will be held to a high bar on climate and conservation. New records will one day be set. There are bright days ahead — although we may not see them yet.

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