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Cutting the Public Out of Public Lands
A new Center for Western Priorities analysis of millions of public comments submitted in response to 10 major Interior Department rule changes shows the extent to which the public has opposed policies proposed by the Trump administration. Although more than 95 percent of public comments opposed each of the proposed rule changes, Interior ultimately moved forward with 8 of the 10 proposals.
Read MoreLobbyists get bang for the bucks at Interior
An analysis of lobbying disclosure forms finds that, since David Bernhardt’s nomination to become Deputy Interior Secretary on April 28, 2017, 36 clients have paid Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck a total of $11.96 million to lobby the Interior Department, including 19 clients that hired the firm after Bernhardt’s nomination. Of those 36 clients, at least 24 have seen their projects or policies advanced in some way by the agency.
Read MoreFunding America’s Public Lands Future
Traditionally, Congress has provided funding for managing our public lands, bolstered in part by revenue from extractive industries operating on our public lands and waters. Companies leasing public lands are required to pay royalties, rent, and other fees in exchange for extracting publicly-owned resources and using the public’s land. In recent years, funding to manage and conserve our public lands has not kept pace with what’s necessary to take care of the public’s resources. This report examines the state of conservation funding for our public lands and recommends options to boost funding in the years to come.
Read MoreThe Drilling and Mining Industry Wish List
The Center for Western Priorities finds the Trump administration granted the wishes of oil, gas, coal, and uranium companies at a breathtaking pace. The report identifies 53 specific policy actions within the jurisdiction of the Interior Department requested or supported by energy interests. Of the 53 energy industry asks reviewed, Trump’s Interior Department had already completed 36 of them at time of publication, with another 12 policy actions in process. Just five industry policy goals identified were not yet addressed during the Trump presidency.
Read MoreWinning the West: Election 2018
The Center for Western Priorities Winning the West: Election 2018 report reveals the growing trend of winning candidates highlighting their support for public lands and outdoor issues in order to connect with Mountain West voters in 2018’s elections. Public lands—how they are used, their importance to local economies, and the way they define life in the West—were often featured as a distinguishing issue by winning campaigns.
Read MoreFunding America’s Conservation Future
A new report by the Center for Western Priorities, Funding America’s Conservation Future, offers a data-driven analysis of the Land and Water Conservation Fund’s (LWCF) accomplishments and examines what is at stake if Congress fails to renew the critical land conservation program. The report, which identified and examined upwards of 800 LWCF projects proposed from 2014 through 2017, provides a unique look at the scope and scale of LWCF successes for communities and states across the nation.
Read MoreLicense to Drill
In recent years it’s been virtually impossible for Coloradans to miss advertisements on the television, radio, and in newspapers touting the oil and gas industry’s commitment to safety and environmental responsibility. One company in particular, Anadarko Petroleum, has led the charge to frame the oil and gas industry as a good neighbor while defeating proposed safety measures. A review of Anadarko’s recent spending sheds light on how the oil and gas giant spent heavily on advertising, lobbying, and political races, while shirking inspections and safety checks on old wells, like the one linked to a fatal home explosion in Firestone, Colorado.
Read More290 Million Reasons to Invest in America’s Public Lands
The Center for Western Priorities estimates that U.S. public lands on Western states see more than 290 million visits each year. It’s more than the amount of people who visited zoos and aquariums, watched the Super Bowl, or attended every NFL, NBA and MLB game combined last season. In a country with so many recreation, leisure, and entertainment options, our public lands take a backseat to none.
Read MoreReclaiming Oil and Gas Wells on Federal Lands: Estimate of Costs
This report estimates the costs of reclaiming oil and gas wells on U.S. public lands. The first-of-its-kind analysis, conducted by the economic consulting firm ECONorthwest, finds that reclaiming—plugging and cleaning up—all producible wells on federal lands could cost a potential $6.1 billion, far exceeding the $162 million in reclamation bonds that the Government Accountability Office last estimated had been provided by oil and gas operators.
Read MoreNot in Their Wildest Dreams
After taking office, the Trump administration moved aggressively to roll back existing common sense energy policies and enact an agenda written by the oil and gas industry. An analysis by the Center for Western Priorities finds the Trump administration and their allies in Congress acted on at least 22 policy changes supported by energy companies and associations as of December 2017. These include efforts to remove safeguards on drilling, shut out the public from decision making, and increase drilling inside of America’s parks and wildlife refuges.
Read MoreWestern States Conservation Scorecard
The Center for Western Priorities’ Western States Conservation Scorecard ranks state policies on public lands access, outdoor recreation, and responsible energy development in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. The goal of the scorecard is to illuminate best practices and gaps in state-level public lands-related policy in the West in an effort to highlight where Western states are demonstrating leadership and where they can improve.
Read MoreFire Lines: Comparing Wildfire Risk on State and U.S. Public Lands
Wildfire is an ever-present reality for many communities in the Western United States. Now, a first-of-its-kind analysis of wildfire data compares the risk of wildfire on U.S. public lands versus state-owned lands. Data show that the percent of U.S. public lands and state-owned lands at a high risk of wildfire are approximately equal, a finding in keeping with consensus among forestry experts that Western wildfires are driven primarily by natural factors and exacerbated by a warming climate.
Read MoreWinning the West: Election 2016
Mountain West states were a political force in the 2016 election, hosting a number of competitive statewide and congressional races. While energy development has long been a prominent topic in Western races, in this cycle the outdoor recreation economy and public lands conservation became wedge issues in a number of key contests.
Read MoreThe Wildfire Burden
Conservative politicians in Western states continue to promote efforts to dispose of U.S. public lands into state and private hands. But ever since this modern day version of the Sagebrush Rebellion appeared in the early 2010s, proponents of “transferring” public lands have failed to answer even the most basic question about their proposal: how will states afford to protect communities from wildfire that occurs naturally across the West? The Center for Western Priorities first analyzed this issue in 2014. This is an update to the original report, which finds that between 2009 and 2015 the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) alone has spent over $6 billion suppressing wildfire in Western states.
Read MoreGoing to Extremes: The Anti-Government Extremism Behind the Growing Movement to Seize America’s Public Lands
The 2016 armed standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon provided the American public with a ringside seat to a disturbing trend on U.S. public lands: extremist and militia groups using America’s national forests, parks, monuments, and wildlife refuges to advance their anti-government beliefs. But these far right-wing organizations are not operating in a vacuum. To the contrary, the armed insurrection in Oregon and Nevada before—led by Ammon Bundy and the Bundy family—share the same foundations as land transfer schemes promoted by some elected leaders in states throughout the West.
Read MoreBusting the Myth of the Obama Administration’s “War on Oil”
Throughout President Obama’s time in office, oil and natural gas companies have been claiming to be the victims of a “war on oil” waged by the Obama administration, especially targeting oil and gas production from land and water that belongs to American taxpayers. New data from the Office of Natural Resources Revenue disproves the myth. Onshore oil production from U.S. public lands has risen steadily, even despite the recent collapse in global oil prices. In fact, oil production from public lands has increased each fiscal year in the past ten.
Read MoreThe Wrong Side of History: 100 Years of Opposition to Our Nation’s Natural Treasures
Americans from coast to coast treasure our national monuments, parks, and forests. Given the overwhelming popularity of these lands today, it is often forgotten that for over 100 years conservation critics have opposed virtually every attempt to protect public lands for future generations. From the very earliest days of American conservation, a vocal minority has remained opposed to any and all new land protection measures. In this report, we examine the past and present history of opposition to land conservation in the United States and look at the often-colorful language employed by opponents warning against new parks, monuments, and other protected lands.
Read MoreThe Mining Burden: Why State Land Seizures Could Cost Billions
Following a toxic chemical release from an abandoned mine in 2015, some politicians did not let a good crisis go to waste, and were quick to blame EPA and “federal overreach” for the accident. A handful went even further, claiming that the incident was evidence that states would be better managers of American public lands than the federal government. In this analysis CWP examines the costs that states would take onto their books from all abandoned mines, and put a price tag on those cleanup responsibilities that would be transferred to the states.
Read MoreThe $51 million impact of the proposed Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument
An economic analysis finds the proposed Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument area in northern Arizona provides $51 million in economic benefits each year. The $51 million includes spending by out-of-town visitors to the proposed monument area, along with revenues from land management operations, grazing, mining, and forest products. Visitors spend millions on lodging, restaurants, and outdoor recreation; these dollars recirculate throughout the region, providing a broad economic benefit. But failure to permanently protect the region could place the $51 million annual contribution to local economies at risk.
Read MoreExporting Public Resources: Taxpayers Lose Big if Congress Lifts Oil Export Ban and Ignores Antiquated Royalty Rates
In 2015, Congress lifted the crude oil export ban. In this report, CWP calculated how much money taxpayers stood to lose if Congress allowed oil companies to send American-produced oil overseas without also ensuring that those companies pay a fair return to taxpayers for oil produced from U.S. public lands.
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