On October 1, 2021, the U.S. Senate confirmed the nomination of Tracy Stone-Manning to head up the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). This is the U.S. Interior Department agency charged with overseeing national monuments and other public lands, as well as key aspects of energy development.
A longtime conservation advocate, Stone-Manning has worked for the National Wildlife Federation, served as chief of staff to former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock and advisor to Sen. Jon Tester, and led Montana's Department of Environmental Quality. Just three months since her confirmation, she is beginning to reverse the previous administration’s harmful policies and ensure our public lands are conserved and used in ways that benefit us all.
Last year, the Center for Progressive Reform laid out five priorities for her and the agency. Here’s an update on progress so far:
1. Restore or expand all targeted national monuments. The Trump administration shrank numerous national monuments, with Utah's Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante among the most infamous. About a week after Stone-Manning’s confirmation, the Biden administration restored these monuments to their original sizes, safeguarding these sacred and scientifically important antiquities and protecting key public lands for future generations.
2. Restart climate adaptation planning. Protecting public lands from sea-level rise, flooding, wildfires, biodiversity loss, and other climate impacts must be at the center of the BLM's mission. Making it so will pay other dividends, too, such as safeguarding public health and nearby communities.
In its 2021 Climate Action Plan, the Interior Department issued a policy statement for adaptation and resilience, including on public lands and waters. The department pledged to mainstream and integrate climate adaptation into its policies, planning, practices, and programs. The administration has also issued an executive order establishing a goal of conserving at least 30 percent of U.S. lands, water, and ocean areas by 2030, which it says is key to adaptation. And its climate and social spending package would incorporate a “Civilian Climate Corps,” but the package has stalled due to opposition in the Senate. Still, because the BLM has been the least advanced of the major federal land agencies in terms of adaptation, it has the most catching up to do.
3. Prioritize renewable energy development and transmission. The BLM administers more land and more subsurface mineral estate than any other government agency, and much of the land it oversees is used for energy development. Biden’s BLM has pledged to ramp up renewable sources of energy on public lands and is pursuing new solar and other renewable energy projects — a marked departure from the previous administration’s emphasis on coal mining and oil and gas drilling.
Stone-Manning has called boosting renewable energy a top priority, and the agency is moving to expand solar power development on U.S. land in the West while taking environmental considerations into account. Environmental groups will be pushing hard to ensure that disruption to environmental habitats will be minimized. The BLM is currently seeking public input on the issue and has paused wind and solar rent and fee collection during the comment period.
4. Tighten restrictions on oil and gas leasing and fracking. Stone-Manning is helping lead federal efforts to cap abandoned oil and gas wells on public lands and prevent them from belching methane into the atmosphere. At the same time, the administration continues to allow hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) on public lands. It also has yet to institute strong, effective regulations to prevent methane leaks and underground injections of toxic chemicals and waste from fracking operations, which can taint groundwater and cause earthquakes.
5. Require offsets for environmental harms. Millions of acres on our federal public lands are open to grazing, mining, hiking, and camping, including lands that BLM oversees. When these activities degrade or pollute our lands, the agency and Interior should require responsible parties to completely offset damage with environmental restoration projects and other efforts; curtail uses of public lands that generate carbon pollution; and advance the federal government's efforts to combat climate change. The Trump administration rolled back “compensatory mitigation” policies, but the Biden administration rescinded that move.
Trump's Bureau of Land Management violated its obligations as a trustee of the nation's public lands and resources. Stone-Manning has begun to repair the damage — including by reversing the previous administration’s decision to relocate BLM headquarters out of Washington, D.C., and to the mountains of western Colorado — and galvanize the agency's commitment to curb and adapt to climate change. But much more must be done to ensure our public lands and waters benefit all people, their communities, and our natural heritage for generations to come.
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Alejandro Camacho | January 21, 2022
Following the announcement that the Bureau of Land Management will cap abandoned oil and gas wells on public lands, CPR is taking a look at the other top issues BLM and its new director, Tracy Stone-Manning, must address.
Sandra Zellmer | January 13, 2022
A global movement is underway to protect 30 percent of the Earth's lands and waters by 2030. More than seventy countries support this goal to combat climate change and slow the pace of species extinction, both of which are accelerating at an unprecedented rate. The two threats are closely intertwined. The greatest drivers of species extinction are climate change and habitat loss; by the same token, the loss of intact, functioning habitat and biodiversity diminishes the capacity for climate resilience. In the United States, one of President Biden's earliest executive orders, issued in his first week in office, established a goal to conserve at least 30 percent of U.S. lands and water and 30 percent of U.S. ocean areas by 2030. The order proclaims an "all of government" approach to strengthening climate resilience and biodiversity while promoting environmental justice and economic growth.
Johnathan Clark | January 12, 2022
On the morning of January 9, 2014, residents of Charleston, West Virginia, noticed an unusual licorice-like odor in their tap water. Within hours, a federal state of emergency was declared as 300,000 West Virginia residents were advised to avoid contact with their tap water, forcing those affected to rely on bottled water until the water supply was restored over one week later. As detailed in our recent report, Tanks for Nothing: The Decades-long Failure to Protect the Public from Hazardous Chemical Spills, the West Virginia Legislature moved quickly to address demands for increased regulatory oversight of aboveground chemical storage tanks (ASTs). With the memory of the spill still fresh in the minds of legislators and constituents, West Virginia enacted the Aboveground Storage Tank Act in 2014. The program primarily serves two major functions: to enact and enforce standards to reduce the risk of a future spill, and to make information about regulated tanks available to state regulators and the public.
Daniel Farber | January 6, 2022
The Biden administration announced on Monday that it would not meet a February target date to issue a revised definition of federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. It still plans to issue a revised definition later in the year. That sounds like a very technical issue. But it actually determines the extent to which the federal government can prevent water pollution and protect wetlands across the nation. The Biden proposal basically calls for case-by-case decisions about federal jurisdiction. It's also the latest chapter in one of the most snarled-up regulatory issue of our times.
Nina Mendelson | December 20, 2021
Scholars and policymakers should recognize the democratic benefits of public comments.
Darya Minovi | December 9, 2021
More than 100 organizations, including the Center for Progressive Reform, are calling for major transformations to the chemical industry — a significant yet overlooked contributor to the climate crisis and toxic pollution in communities. What are the threats and how can reforms take shape? Policy Analyst Dary Minovi explains.
Christine Klein | December 9, 2021
In an era when most Supreme Court opinions are sharply divided, recently the high court unanimously rejected Mississippi’s claim against Tennessee in a long-running dispute over the groundwater that lies beneath both states in a common aquifer.
Darya Minovi, David Flores | December 8, 2021
Across the country, hundreds of thousands of aboveground storage facilities containing hazardous chemicals — such as arsenic, formaldehyde, and trichloroethylene — are not subject to state or federal rules designed to prevent and mitigate spills. These storage tanks sit along our industrialized waterfronts and at agricultural supply depots in our rural communities, threatening the health and safety of nearby residents, many of whom are low-income people of color. It's beyond time for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and states like Virginia to take action.
James Goodwin, Minor Sinclair | December 2, 2021
Over the last four decades, small government ideologues have waged a coordinated attack against government. The strategy has paid off: Public approval ratings of all three branches of government are at all-time lows. Nevertheless, the federal government still manages to get things done on a day-to-day basis, and that is primarily due to the so-called 4th branch of government — the administrative and regulatory state that employs 2 million workers, invests trillions of dollars each year on things like air pollution monitoring and cutting-edge clean energy research, and makes rules that protect us all.