Obama clarifies succession to leadership at several environmental, science policy agencies

As is customary at the end of a President’s tenure, Barack Obama issued several executive orders and memoranda late last week that clarify the succession of leadership at federal agencies. Included were directives affecting the Council on Environmental Quality, Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Environmental Protection Agency.

The question of EPA’s leadership succession was the only one of the three to be addressed via executive order. Obama set out sixteen potential chief managers of the agency in the event the administrator or deputy administrator dies or resigns.

Gina McCarthy has been the 13th administrator of EPA since July 2013. Image courtesy Wikimedia.

While current administrator Gina McCarthy and acting deputy administrator Stan Meiburg have not said that they will leave office before noon on Friday – the time and date on which Obama’s administration ends – their successors may not be confirmed by the Senate before then.

EPA has not had a permanent deputy administrator since August 2014, when two-decade agency veteran Bob Perciasepe resigned to lead an environmental advocacy organization.

President-elect Donald J. Trump has nominated Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt to lead EPA. Pruitt’s confirmation hearings before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee are scheduled to begin on Jan. 18.

Once McCarthy leaves office on Friday, and if Meiburg also exits, then the succession at EPA will progress through the agency’s general counsel and then the assistant administrators for the Offices of Solid Waste, Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, Air and Radiation, Water, and Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.

Christy Goldfuss has led CEQ since 2015. Image courtesy The White House.

The Council on Environmental Quality, which is part of the Executive Office of the President, has not had a chairperson in place since Michael Boots resigned in March 2015.

Obama’s memoranda of Jan. 13 provides that the organization’s managing director, chief of staff, general counsel, associate director for National Environmental Policy Act, and, finally, other associate directors in order of appointment will succeed to its leadership.

Current managing director Christy Goldfuss has been leading CEQ since Boots left the White House staff. She is a former deputy director of the National Park Service and once worked as a staff member for the House Committee on Natural Resources.

The CEQ chair is subject to Senate confirmation.

Obama also ordered Friday that the associate directors for national security and international affairs, technology, science, and environment and energy will succeed, in that order, current OSTP director John P. Holdren if a new director is not in place by noon on Jan. 20.

Dr. John P. Holdren, a physicist and aerospace engineer, has led OSTP since 2009. Image courtesy The White House.

If the associate directors are no longer in office at that time, then OSTP’s chief of staff, deputy chief of staff and assistant director, and general counsel would be next in line.

Like CEQ, OSTP is part of the White House staff. Its director is also subject to Senate confirmation.

Trump has not named the next OSTP director.

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Updated Spreadsheet of Obama National Monument Designations and Expansions

President Barack Obama has designated or increased the size of 34 national monuments. This spreadsheet provides details:

National Monument	Date Established or Enlarged	Land or Marine?	State or Territory	Size (acres)	Agency	Notes	Link to Proclamation	Link to White House Fact Sheet
Basin and Range	7/10/2015	Land	Nevada	704,000	BLM		https://tinyurl.com/jfqgpyy	https://tinyurl.com/zyjenj9
Bears Ears	12/28/2016	Land	Utah	1,350,000	BLM/USDA Forest Service		https://tinyurl.com/j5rfg4h	https://tinyurl.com/jfty68p
Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality	4/12/2016	Land	Washington, D.C.	<1	NPS		https://tinyurl.com/zn73ju3	https://tinyurl.com/q99tgx4
Berryessa Snow Mountain	7/10/2015	Land	California	330,380	BLM/USDA Forest Service		https://tinyurl.com/j7ujohj	https://tinyurl.com/zyjenj9
Birmingham Civil Rights	1/12/2017	Land	Alabama	1	NPS		https://tinyurl.com/hc2vlco	https://tinyurl.com/z2knqsz
Browns Canyon	2/1/2015	Land	Colorado	21,586	BLM/USDA Forest Service		https://tinyurl.com/jndlox3	https://tinyurl.com/pe4oa54
California Coastal	1/12/2017	Land	California	6,230	BLM	enlargement of California Coastal National Monument	https://tinyurl.com/j4dx5qk	https://tinyurl.com/z2knqsz
Cascade-Siskiyou	1/12/2017	Land	Oregon	48,000	BLM	enlargement of Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument	https://tinyurl.com/z9f63hj	https://tinyurl.com/z2knqsz
Castle Mountains	2/12/2016	Land	California	30,920	NPS		https://tinyurl.com/hkd4c83	https://tinyurl.com/j5azhsc
Cesar Estrada Chavez	10/8/2012	Land	California	11	NPS		https://tinyurl.com/hfbamyr
Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers	3/25/2013	Land	Ohio	60	NPS		https://tinyurl.com/h6vztnb
Chimney Rock	9/21/2012	Land	Colorado	4,722	USDA Forest Service		https://tinyurl.com/zna8345
First State Historical Park	3/25/2013	Land	Delaware	1,108	NPS		https://tinyurl.com/z9gmybq
Fort Monroe	11/1/2011	Land	Virginia	325	NPS		https://tinyurl.com/h8wz4rt
Fort Ord	4/20/2012	Land	California	14,651	BLM		https://tinyurl.com/j5oae3s
Freedom Riders	1/12/2017	Land	Alabama	6	NPS		https://tinyurl.com/jt7jh3p	https://tinyurl.com/z2knqsz
Gold Butte	12/28/2016	Land	Nevada	300,000	BLM		https://tinyurl.com/jrdstc7	https://tinyurl.com/jfty68p
Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad	3/25/2013	Land	Maryland	11,750	NPS		https://tinyurl.com/hrvfhvr
Honouliuli	2/9/2015	Land	Hawaii	123	NPS		https://tinyurl.com/gq4t6j3	https://tinyurl.com/pe4oa54
Katahdin Woods & Waters	8/24/2016	Land	Maine	87,563	NPS	on land donated to U.S. government	https://tinyurl.com/jjp3fbf	https://tinyurl.com/jj69h23
Mojave Trails	2/12/2016	Land	California	1,600,000	BLM		https://tinyurl.com/gm7ykkn	https://tinyurl.com/j5azhsc
Northeast Canyons and Seamounts	9/15/2016	Marine	Massachusetts – Atlantic	4,913	NOAA/USFWS		https://tinyurl.com/zhssztt
Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks	5/21/2014	Land	New Mexico	496,330	BLM		https://tinyurl.com/zvt9owo
Pacific Remote Islands	9/25/2014	Marine	Guam – Pacific		NOAA/USFWS	enlarged from 86,888 to 408,301 sq. mi.	https://tinyurl.com/zxlwtdm
Papahānaumokuākea	8/26/2016	Marine	Hawaii		USFWS, Hawaii	enlarged from 140,000 to 582,578 sq. mi.	https://tinyurl.com/z5bvc2o	https://tinyurl.com/j6bjjzr
Point Arena-Stornetta Public Lands	3/11/2014	Land	California	1,665	BLM	enlargement of California Coastal National Monument	https://tinyurl.com/jafyea2
Prehistoric Trackways	3/30/2009	Land	New Mexico	5,255	BLM	legislation
Pullman	2/19/2015	Land	Illinois	203	NPS		https://tinyurl.com/hr2uleo	https://tinyurl.com/pe4oa54
Reconstruction Era	1/12/2017	Land	South Carolina	16	NPS		https://tinyurl.com/z56stzf	https://tinyurl.com/z2knqsz
Rio Grande del Norte	3/25/2013	Land	New Mexico	242,555	BLM		https://tinyurl.com/h6ordoo
San Gabriel Mountains	10/10/2014	Land	California	346,177	USDA Forest Service		https://tinyurl.com/z3harl7
San Juan Islands	10/8/2012	Land	Washington	970	BLM		https://tinyurl.com/zaeeqky
Sand to Snow	2/12/2016	Land	California	154,000	BLM/USDA Forest Service		https://tinyurl.com/gqkgeb6	https://tinyurl.com/j5azhsc
Stonewall	6/24/2016	Land	New York	8	Private		https://tinyurl.com/jne54kz
Tule Springs Fossil Beds	12/19/2014	Land	Nevada	22,650	NPS	legislation
Waco Mammoth	7/10/2015	Land	Texas	7	NPS, City of Waco, Baylor University		https://tinyurl.com/j9o3qca	https://tinyurl.com/zyjenj9

Obama expands two western national monuments, sets aside preserves to recognize history of quest for racial justice

President Barack Obama, acting as his time in office winds down to further his noteworthy record of advancing public land conservation, moved Thursday to enlarge two existing national monuments in the West and established three national monuments in the South to recognize the long struggle for racial equality in the United States.

Obama adjusted the boundaries of California Coastal National Monument in California and Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in southern Oregon and northern California. Both national monuments are on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management, an agency of the U.S. Department of Interior.

“The BLM manages some of the nation’s wildest and most sacred landscapes, including more than 800 areas that have been protected through congressional and presidential action,” Neil Kornze, the director of BLM, said. “We’re proud to be charged with stewarding these incredible lands for future generations, including today’s additions to the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument and the California Coastal National Monument. The BLM looks forward to continuing and expanding our work with local communities to ensure successful management of these special places.”

California Coastal National Monument. Image courtesy BLM, photo by Bob Wick.

Obama’s proclamation expanding California Coastal National Monument tracked the language of the American Antiquities Act of 1906 and pointed to the “historic or scientific interest” of six areas that will now be included in it: Trinidad Head, Waluplh-Lighthouse Ranch, Lost Coast Headlands, Cotoni-Coast Dairies, Piedras Blancas, and Orange County Rocks and Islands. The first three of those listed sites are in Humboldt County, the core of the Golden State’s “Redwood Coast,” while the others are located, respectively, in Santa Cruz County, San Luis Obispo County, and Orange County.

Trinidad Head appears on the upper right of this photograph. Image courtesy Wikimedia, photo by TrinidadMike.

Trinidad Head, in Humboldt County, is a high promontory known as the site where Spanish explorers landed in June 1775 to claim the land now known as California for King Charles III. Portuguese sailors had discovered the site even earlier, in 1595.

The site has been the location of a picturesque lighthouse since  1871 and now also serves as location for scientific research. The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration established a meteorological laboratory there in 2002, while NASA has studied trace atmospheric gases from the location since 1995. Thirteen acres of the site are now included within the boundaries of California Coastal National Monument.

Waluplh-Lighthouse Ranch is 12 miles south of Eureka. A property of high ancestral significance to the Wyot Tribe, it was used by the U.S. Coast Guard beginning in the late 1800s. The military developed a base for coastal lookout operations there during the 1940s, but now there are no buildings on the site. Visitors to the property can see the Pacific Ocean, Eel River Delta, and south spit of Humboldt Bay.

This photo shows some of the remote Lost Coast Headlands in central California. Image courtesy BLM, photo by Bob Wick.

The Lost Coast Headlands are located 13 miles south of Waluph-Lighthouse Ranch. They are of geological value because the sedimentary rock underneath the hills, bluffs, and forests include marine fossils dating from Pleistocene Epoch. The areas’s biodiversity includes bobcats, gray fox, and mountain lions, as well as a variety of raptors, a steelhead run, and a population of threatened California red-legged frogs.

Named for an area bypassed by U.S. Highway 1, the Lost Coast area of which the headlands are part lost population beginning in the 1930s. The nearby Sinkyone Wilderness State Park and King Range National Conservation Area also aim to preserve the scenic region, known for its black sand beaches, spectacular vistas and tall redwood trees.

This photo provides a view of the coastal lands of the Cotoni-Coast Dairies property now included within California Coastal National Monument. Image courtesy Wikimedia.

Most of the land known as Santa Cruz County’s Cotoni-Coast Dairies are not now open to the public. The 5,785-acre property was obtained by The Trust for Public Land in 1998. That organization then donated 407 acres to California State Parks and most of the rest to BLM in 2014.

The Cotoni-Coast Diaries property spans six watersheds, all of which are considered to be viable Pacific salmon habitat. Three of the streams on the property – Laguna Creek, Liddell Creek, and San Vicente Creek – actually host salmon or steelhead spawners.  The mammal population is also diverse. As described in Obama’s proclamation:

“The diversity of the uplands vegetation in Cotoni-Coast Dairies supports a rich wildlife community including a vast and varied mammalian population. Among the many species inhabiting Cotoni-Coast Dairies are California voles, dusky-footed woodrats, black-tailed jackrabbits, mule deer, and gray fox. Evidence also suggests that both bobcats and mountain lions hunt here.

“Visitors to Cotoni-Coast Dairies may be able to catch a glimpse of a variety of avian species, including black swifts, orange crowned warblers, American kestrels, Cooper’s hawks, white-tailed kites, and peregrine falcons. In the riparian areas, one may encounter Wilson’s warblers, downy woodpeckers, and tree swallows, among others. Various bat species, including the Townsend’s big-eared bat, can be seen darting overhead at dusk.”

The land given by The Trust for Public Land to California was later opened to the public as Coast Dairies State Park.

Elephant seals rest on the beach at Piedras Blancas. Image courtesy Scripps Institute of Oceanography, photo by Wolf Berger.

Piedras Blancas, about 40 miles north of San Luis Obispo, is known for its elephant seal rookery and its historic lighthouse. The site has long been important to native Americans because, for at least 3,000 years, it was a location for trading between different cultures. The explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo claimed it for Spain in 1542 and, three-plus centuries later, a lighthouse was built there in the 1870s.

Elephant seals are not the only pinniped visitors to Piedras Blancas. California sea lions and harbor seals are also common there. Whales and dolphins can be seen from the beaches. The region also serves as habitat for a variety of birds, amphibians, and reptiles and boasts a broad array of plants, including at least 70 native species.

The sixth area included in Obama’s expansion of California Coastal National Monument is in southern California. The Orange County Rocks and Islands are important habitat for a variety of sea birds, including the formerly endangered brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis), and marine mammals. They also provide a unique view of coastal geology for visitors to the coast.

Designated by Congress during the 1930s as sites for lighthouses, the Orange County Rocks and Islands were the only offshore California lands that had not previously been included in the California Coastal National Monument.

California Coastal National Monument was established in 2000 by President William Jefferson Clinton. Clinton’s proclamation emphasized that his decision to create the preserve was motivated principally by a desire to protect marine wildlife habitat.

Obama expanded the monument in March 2014 to include the Point Arena-Stornetta Public Lands, a scenic coastal area in Mendocino County that includes dunes, prairies, riverbanks, shelves, tidepools, and the mouth of the Garcia River.

Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Image courtesy BLM.

Obama’s other national monument expansion announced Thursday impacts another Clinton-era designation. The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, first set aside in 2000, is now about 48,000 acres larger.

Focusing on the region’s significance to an array of wildlife, Obama’s Jan. 12 proclamation explained that the uniquely abundant biodiversity in the Cascade-Siskiyou region provided a convincing reason for the expansion:

“Cascade-Siskiyou’s biodiversity, which provides habitat for a dazzling array of species, is internationally recognized and has been studied extensively by ecologists, evolutionary biologists, botanists, entomologists, and wildlife biologists. Ranging from high slopes of Shasta red fir to lower elevations with Douglas fir, ponderosa pine, incense cedar, and oak savannas, the topography and elevation gradient of the area has helped create stunningly diverse ecosystems. From ancient and mixed-aged conifer and hardwood forests to chaparral, oak woodlands, wet meadows, shrublands, fens, and open native perennial grasslands, the landscape harbors extraordinarily varied and diverse plant communities. Among these are threatened and endangered plant species and habitat for numerous other rare and endemic species.”

The President also highlighted the imperative of providing space for animal populations to move, specifically mentioning the major features that will now be included in the national monument: Horseshoe Ranch, the Jenny Creek watershed, the Grizzly Peak area, Lost Lake, the Rogue Valley foothills, the Southern Cascades area, and the area surrounding Surveyor Mountain.

Among the many species found in this area are hundreds of flowering plants, several ferns, and at least six trees. Obama also cited the presence of 14 raptors, including the threatened northern spotted owl, a large variety of songbirds and avians dependent on marshes and other freshwater resources, and a long list of amphibians, fish, invertebrates, mammals, and reptiles.

Obama also noted the region’s significance to native Americans and as a path for the Applegate Trail.

The two western national monument expansions were not Thursday’s only invocations of the Antiquities Act of 1906. Obama also set aside three small national monuments in the south.

Each is aimed at  commemorating the sites of important events in the nation’s long quest for equal justice and equal rights and all three will be managed by the National Park Service.

This photo shows the Freedom Riders bus in flames following an attack on African-Americans working to secure their Constitutional rights. Image courtesy National Park Service.

The Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, in Birmingham, Ala., and the Freedom Riders National Monument, in Anniston, Ala., pay homage to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, while Reconstruction Era National Monument in becomes the only component of the National Park System that aims to build public awareness of the post-Civil War era in which the federal government worked to integrate freed slaves into the national political and economic fabric.

“African-American history is American history and these monuments are testament to the people and places on the front-lines of our entire nation’s march toward a more perfect union,” U.S. secretary of interior Sally Jewell said. “Now the National Park Service, America’s Storyteller, will forever be responsible for safeguarding the narrative of not only the sparks that ignited the Civil Rights movement but also the hope of the Reconstruction Era, which for far too long, has been neglected from our national conscience.”

With Thursday’s announcements Obama became the most prolific land and water conservationist of all American chief executives. He has designated or increased the size of 34 national monuments during his eight-year tenure, two more than President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The total amount of acreage, including both land and ocean-based national monuments, that Obama has preserved is in excess of 550 million acres.

 

Barrasso, Murkowski tell Politico Morning Energy of some GOP plans for energy, environmental policies

A Congressional attack on President Barack Obama’s recent use of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to block oil exploration in the Arctic and on the Atlantic seaboard is coming. So are Congressional Review Act efforts to nullify sundry other Obama administration environmental protection rules.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told Politico Morning Energy Friday that “her team” is examining methods to overturn Obama’s Dec. 20 OCSLA decision.

“We think we can make the argument that it does fall within review, but again that’s what the smart legal teams are doing,” she told the online publication.

Senator John Barrasso, R-Wyo., also spoke to Politico Morning Energy. He was quoted as saying that the GOP Congress would take an “opposite approach” when it comes to environmental policy and that the CRA would be deployed to go after at least a few regulations.

Barrasso is the new chair of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee.

Murkowski told the magazine that her staff at the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which she chairs, have built a “laundry list” of possible regulations for which CRA nullification would be attempted.

Obama declares national monuments in Nevada and Utah

President Barack Obama gave a late Christmas present to environmental protection advocates and Native American tribes by declaring federal land in Nevada and Utah as national monuments.

The Dec. 28 move by the White House covers about 1.64 million acres of Bureau of Land Management and USDA Forest Service land. Included are about 300,000 acres in Nevada and about 1.35 million acres in southeastern Utah.

“Today’s actions will help protect this cultural legacy and will ensure that future generations are able to enjoy and appreciate these scenic and historic landscapes,” Obama said in a statement.

This map of the new Gold Butte National Monument in Nevada shows its close proximity to the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument in Arizona and Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Map courtesy U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The new Nevada preserve, to be known as Gold Butte National Monument, is in Clark County, northeast of Las Vegas. A fact sheet released by the White House pointed to its importance as a connective corridor between Lake Mead Recreation Area and Grand Canyon-Parishant National Monument in northern Arizona.

Obama, in the formal proclamation creating the national monument, specifically highlighted the area’s Native American artifacts, 19th century ranch buildings, artifacts from the Spanish exploration of the area centuries ago, fossilized dinosaur tracks, and wildlife habitat.

“The Gold Butte area contains an extraordinary variety of diverse and irreplaceable scientific, historic, and prehistoric resources, including vital plant and wildlife habitat, significant geological formations, rare fossils, important sites from the history of Native Americans, and remnants of our Western mining and ranching heritage. The landscape reveals a story of thousands of years of human interaction with this harsh environment and provides a rare glimpse into the lives of Nevada’s first inhabitants, the rich and varied indigenous cultures that followed, and the eventual arrival of Euro-American settlers. Canyons and intricate rock formations are a stunning backdrop to the area’s famously beautiful rock art, and the desert provides critical habitat for the threatened Mojave desert tortoise.”

– Presidential Proclamation: Establishment of the Gold Butte National Monument, Dec. 28, 2016

Among the species that will benefit from the increased restrictions on natural resource use that comes with the national monument designation are Mojave desert tortoise, mountain lions, and desert bighorn sheep.

The designation of Gold Butte National Monument was pushed for many years by outgoing U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Reid said in a statement that the new national monument represents what “Nevada once was.”

This photo shows some of the land included in the new Gold Butte National Monument. Image courtesy U.S. Bureau of Land Management, photo by Wendy Harrell.

Gold Butte National Monument is the third one to be designated by Obama in Nevada.

In July 2015 the President designated Basin and Range National Monument there. That preserve includes 704,000 acres in two remote southeastern counties.

In 2014 Obama declared the Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument, which encompasses 22,650 acres of land containing Ice Age-vintage paleontological artifacts.

The Utah preserve will be known as Bears Ears National Monument.

Named for two buttes that have similar names in several Native American languages, the protection of cultural artifacts the new national monument affords has been avidly sought by the region’s tribes for at least eight decades.

The Bears Ears buttes are the namesake of a new national monument in Utah. Photo courtesy Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, photo by Tim Peterson.

More than two dozen tribes, representing native Americans across the U.S, had asked Obama to preserve about 1.9 million acres in the Bears Ears area.

Long heralded as one of the few remaining unspoiled areas in the West, the region has experienced a significant increase in vandalism and looting of sacred sites. The  National Trust for Historic Preservation named it one of the 11 most endangered historic sites in the U.S. last year, specifically noting that BLM has lacked both funds and staff needed to protect its archaeological resources.

Obama’s proclamation establishing the preserve paid homage to the area’s importance to the country’s indigenous peoples:

“For hundreds of generations, native peoples lived in the surrounding deep sandstone canyons, desert mesas, and meadow mountaintops, which constitute one of the densest and most significant cultural landscapes in the United States. Abundant rock art, ancient cliff dwellings, ceremonial sites, and countless other artifacts provide an extraordinary archaeological and cultural record that is important to us all, but most notably the land is profoundly sacred to many Native American tribehttps://wordpress.com/post/naturalresourcestoday.org/4571s, including the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah Ouray, Hopi Nation, and Zuni Tribe.”

– Presidential Proclamation: Establishment of the Bears Ears National Monument, Dec. 28, 2016

At the core of Bears Ears National Monument is Cedar Mesa, which includes at least 56,000 cultural artifacts, the vistas of Muley Point, and the origin of at least twelve canyons. Some of the native artifacts there date back at least 12,000 years.

This photo shows the vista from Muley Point, looking toward the south. Image courtesy Wikimedia.

In addition to the Bears Ears buttes, the new national monument includes the Abajo Mountains and Elk Ridge, Beef Basin, Chimney Rocks, Comb Ridge, Indian Creek and Harts Draw, Moqui Canyon, Mancos Mesa, Nokai Dome, Red Canyon, Valley of the Gods, White Canyon, and the confluence of the San Juan and Colorado rivers.

This map shows the proximity of Bears Ears National Monument to Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, and several tribal nations. Map courtesy U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Obama’s proclamation also gave Native Americans a formal role in management of the new national monument, a first under the Antiquities Act, by establishing a commission of tribal leaders to advise BLM and USDA Forest Service land managers in the region.

Bears Ears National Monument will protect more than cultural assets. The area also includes arches, canyons, hoodoos, and natural bridges, making it geologically unique, as well as fossils that extend from Earth’s Permian period through the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras of geologic time.

This image shows petroglyphs on Comb Ridge. Photo courtesy Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, photo by Josh Ewing.

Environmentalists, too, lauded Obama’s move.

“In preserving the iconic Bears Ears, President Obama has made conservation history,” Rhea Suh, the president of Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. “These lands will now be safe from mining, drilling and other threats.”

Opponents of Bears Ears National Monument, including Republicans in the Utah Congressional delegation, promised a fight over the designation.

Rep. Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz, both of whom represent rural regions of the Beehive State, introduced in a bill during the 114th Congress that would have set aside some of the Bears Ears region as wilderness. Native American leaders did not support it, however, after concluding that their perspective was not being considered by the two anti-public land congressmen.

Bishop and Chaffetz incorporated their “Public Lands Initiative” into a bill, H.R. 5780, that cleared the House Natural Resources Committee but did not receive a floor vote. It is not clear whether it could pass the U.S. Senate, though Utah’s two senators have also expressed opposition to Obama’s move.

Deseret News reported Dec. 29 that Chaffetz, in his role as chair of the House Oversight and Government Operations Committee, demanded that the administration turn over documents relating to the designation of both Bears Ears National Monument and Gold Butte National Monument.

The state’s attorney general also announced on Dec. 28 that he would sue in an effort to obtain a federal court order overturning Obama’s action in creating Bears Ears National Monument.

No obvious precedent indicates that such a lawsuit would succeed. The U.S. Supreme Court has, on several occasions, upheld unilateral Presidential authority to designate national monuments, even in cases of large swaths of public land such as the Bears Ears region.

Obama has now designated or increased the size of 29 national monuments that include more than 550 million acres of land or sea. He has made the second-most use of the Antiquities Act of 1906, following only President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Obama blocks oil drilling in Arctic, part of Atlantic oceans

This photograph of a polar bear, one of the wildlife species that may benefit from President Barack Obama’s decision, was taken by Terry DeBruhn. Image courtesy U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

Relying on a statute from the 1950s, President Barack Obama moved Tuesday to permanently shut off the Arctic and a significant portion of the Atlantic oceans along the nation’s coasts to oil and gas exploration.

The White House announced that Obama invoked authority granted by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to withdraw the Chukchi Sea Planning Area, most of the Beaufort Sea Planning Area, and 5,990 square miles of canyons in the Atlantic Ocean between New England and the Chesapeake Bay from fossil fuel activities.

Obama said in a statement that his decision was motivated by a desire to “protect a sensitive and unique ecosystem that is unlike any other region on earth.”

“They reflect the scientific assessment that, even with the high safety standards that both our countries have put in place, the risks of an oil spill in this region are significant and our ability to clean up from a spill in the region’s harsh conditions is limited,” Obama explained. “By contrast, it would take decades to fully develop the production infrastructure necessary for any large-scale oil and gas leasing production in the region – at a time when we need to continue to move decisively away from fossil fuels.”

Map courtesy U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

The OCLA was enacted in 1953. Section 12(a) of OCLA, 43 U.S.C. § 1341(a), provides that “[t]he President of the United States may, from time to time, withdraw from disposition any of the unleased lands of the outer Continental Shelf.”

The statute imposes no constraints on the President’s authority to order such a withdrawal. In that way it is similar to the American Antiquities Act of 1906, which gives Presidents the power to declare national monuments.

In both cases, Congress delegated its power over federal property to the President, but the grant could well be interpreted by a federal court as a “one-way ratchet” that does not permit a later President to reverse a predecessor’s decision to withdraw OCSLA areas from energy exploration activities.

The reach of section 12(a) has not been tested in litigation.

John D. Leshy, a professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and a former solicitor of the Department of Interior, told Atlantic Monthly that he believes Obama’s decision should be upheld in federal court if it is challenged by fossil fuel advocates.

“I think it was quite a realistic thing that Obama did, and it should be upheld—but who knows,” he said.

Congress could, of course, pass a bill reversing Obama’s move, but that legislation would have to clear a likely filibuster by U.S. Senate Democrats on the way to Trump’s desk.

Map courtesy U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

Presidents also have authority under OCLA to craft five-year exploration plans. Obama has used that tool, too, as a way of reducing the American fossil fuel footprint in sensitive marine areas.

On Nov. 18 the administration issued the final five-year OCLA lease program that covers the years 2017-2022. It proposes one sale in waters off Alaska, in Cook Inlet, and none in the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. The 2017-2022 lease program anticipates 10 sales of exploration rights in the Gulf of Mexico.

Canada also undertook action to ban future fossil fuel exploration in the Arctic on Dec. 20. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his country would impose the prohibition for five years.

“Canada is designating all Arctic Canadian waters as indefinitely off limits to future offshore Arctic oil and gas licensing, to be reviewed every 5 years through a climate and marine science-based life-cycle assessment,” Trudeau said in a joint statement by Canada and the U.S.

No Canadian oil and gas activity in the Arctic has occurred since 2006.

Alaska and other states retain authority to authorize oil drilling in the first three miles of ocean beyond their shores as management of those areas of the continental shelf are entrusted to them and is not subject to federal control.

Obama: Climate change trends are “terrifying”

 

President Barack Obama told a team of interviewers from the New York Times on Thursday that the trends evident in the warming of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are “terrifying.”

Here’s the video of the interview:

 

 

China, U.S. formally enter into Paris climate change agreement

President Barack Obama signed the Paris Agreement on behalf of the United States on Aug. 29, 2016. Photo courtesy The White House.

President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, announced Saturday in Hangzhou that the world’s two leading greenhouse gas emitters have formally acceded to the terms of last year’s Paris Agreement on climate change.

The two nations account for 40 percent of the planet’s atmosphere-warming pollution. Obama pointed to the action Saturday as a key step in assuring that the 195 country-strong deal reached last December in France does lead to an effective response to climate change.

“We have a saying in America — that you need to put your money where your mouth is. And when it comes to combating climate change, that’s what we’re doing, both the United States and China. We’re leading by example. As the world’s two largest economies and two largest emitters, our entrance into this agreement continues the momentum of Paris, and should give the rest of the world confidence –- whether developed or developing countries -– that a low-carbon future is where the world is heading.”

Nations were able to sign the Paris Agreement starting on Earth Day of this year. The Paris Agreement will take effect only when 55 countries that represent 55 percent of all GHG emissions on Earth ratify, accept, approve, or accede to it.

With the acceptance by both China and the U.S., 179 nations and the European Union have indicated approval, but only 26 have ratified it. The ratifying nations account for about 39 percent of planetary GHG emissions.

NATION	CONTINENT	RATIFICATION DATE
Bahamas, The	–	Aug. 22, 2016
Barbados	–	Apr. 22, 2016
Belize	North America	Apr. 22, 2016
Cameroon	Africa	Jul. 29, 2016
China	Asia	Sept. 3, 2016
Cook Islands	Oceania	Sept. 1, 2016
Fiji	Oceania	Apr. 22, 2016
Grenada	–	Apr. 22, 2016
Guyana	South America	May 20, 2016
Maldives	Asia	Apr. 22, 2016
Marshall Islands	Oceania	Apr. 22, 2016
Mauritius	Africa	Apr. 22, 2016
Nauru	Oceania	Apr. 22, 2016
North Korea	Asia	Aug. 1, 2016
Norway	Europe	Jun. 20, 2016
Palau	Oceania	Apr. 22, 2016
Palestine	Asia	Apr. 22, 2016
Peru	South America	Jul. 25, 2016
Saint Kitts and Nevis	–	Apr. 22, 2016
Saint Lucia	–	Apr. 22, 2016
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	–	Jun. 29, 2016
Samoa	Oceania	Apr. 22, 2016
Seychelles	–	Apr. 29, 2016
Somalia	Africa	Apr. 22, 2016
Tuvalu	Oceania	Apr. 22, 2016
United States of America	North America	Sept. 3, 2016

The Paris Agreement was reached at the 21st Gathering of the Parties of the UNFCCC. As the first international agreement aimed at limiting the warming of the planet’s atmosphere and oceans now underway as a result of human exploitation of fossil fuels, the Paris Agreement does not require any specific actions by nations to reduce GHG emissions.

Instead, the accord is aspirational. As the United Nations assistant secretary-general for climate change told CBS News last December, it is a plan that aims to “name and encourage” the nations who fail to meet commitments to reduce GHG emissions.

Those commitments, known as “nationally determined contributions,” are to be “ambitious” and “represent a progression over time.” The content of NDCs are to be established “with a view to achieving the purpose of the [Paris Agreement].”

The core of the Paris Agreement is the specification of climate change-related objectives:

“(a) Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change;

“(b) Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production; [and]

“(c) Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.”

During the first half of this year the average worldwide temperature was about 1.3 degrees Celsius above that recorded in 1880. Moreover, a study published in Nature on June 30 concluded that all of the NDCs in place so far would not lead to warming of less than 2 degrees Celsius.

 

 

 

 

 

Obama talks conservation in Nevada and Hawaii

President Barack Obama spoke Wednesday about the virtues of conservation before audiences at Lake Tahoe and in Honolulu, emphasizing the connection to fighting climate change and highlighting its benefits to wildlife and people.

Addressing the annual Lake Tahoe Summit, the chief executive explained that public policies aimed at conserving land and waters are essential to the entire range of Earth’s biodiversity.

“Conservation is critical not just for one particular spot, one particular park, one particular lake,” Obama said. “It’s critical for our entire ecosystem.”

The President told the audience that there is no doubt that human activities are causing the planet’s climate to change and, later in the speech, bluntly warned that any meaningful effort to address climate change must include preservation programs:

“A changing climate threatens even the best conservation efforts. Keep in mind, 2014 was the warmest year on record until, you guessed it, 2015. And now 2016 is on pace to be even hotter. For 14 months in a row now, the Earth has broken global temperature records. And because climate and conservation are challenges that go hand in hand, our conservation mission is more urgent than ever.”

Obama addressed the twentieth annual gathering of federal, state, and local leaders involved in ongoing efforts to protect Lake Tahoe’s water quality and aquatic life.

Lake Tahoe’s Emerald Bay is shown in this photograph. Image courtesy Wikimedia.

The lake, which is the largest alpine lake and second deepest lake in the nation, is warming rapidly as greenhouse gas emissions accumulate in the atmosphere. According to a report released by the University of California, Davis’ Tahoe Environmental Research Center, during 2015 Lake Tahoe’s surface reached a temperature higher than at any time in recorded history.

Water at greater depths is also warming as fast as 15 times greater than the historic norm and only about 6.5 percent of precipitation in the 6,000 foot-plus elevation Lake Tahoe ecosystem now falls in the form of snow.

Since the first Lake Tahoe Summit in 1997, governments have spent more than $1.8 billion on projects aimed at restoring wetlands, building transportation infrastructure, improving roads to reduce carriage of polluted runoff into the lake, and lower wildfire risks in the national forest that surrounds the lake.

The administration announced Wednesday that the administration would invest more than $29 million more into Lake Tahoe-related conservation efforts during the coming fiscal year.

A fact sheet released by the  White House said that the money would finance ongoing programs to reduce the number of dead and dying trees to reduce the likelihood of wildfire and improve stormwater systems.

In addition, the National Forest Foundation will pump at least $4 million into efforts to restore watersheds and assure that recreational activities are consistent with the region’s ecological health.

The administration also announced a draft of a compensatory mitigation policy that would allow individuals and entities to trade habitat for endangered and threatened species for credits that could be sold to developers.

The tool, called a habitat exchange, has been used in efforts to conserve a number of imperiled species. They include the monarch butterfly, greater sage grouse, and lesser prairie chicken.

“By adding habitat exchanges to the suite of preferred mitigation solutions, the Service is providing a foundational step to unleash the untapped potential of America’s working lands – its farms, ranches and forests – to reverse habitat loss and stop the extinction crisis,” Eric Holst, an associate vice president at Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement.

Later in the day Obama spoke to leaders of Pacific Rim nations attending the International Union for Conservation of Nature World Congress in Hawaii.

His address there took on a personal tone. The President emphasized the need for a unified approach to climate change policy.

“When it comes to climate change, there is a dire possibility of us getting off course, and we can’t allow that to happen,” Obama said. “That’s why our united efforts are so important.”

"We have to row as one. If we do, we might just save the one planet that we've got." —@POTUS https://t.co/kLOKgyiEvf https://t.co/Q0QsgN1yXw

— White House Archived (@ObamaWhiteHouse) September 1, 2016

Referring to the convention facility in Honolulu, he also spoke of his personal ties to Hawaii:

“[F]or me, this is especially meaningful. I was telling my staff, a lot of my life started about a mile from around here. My mother and father met probably a couple hundred yards from here. It’s true. I went to school about a mile from here. I was actually born about a mile from here. My grandmother and my grandparents lived most of their lives a short way away from here.

“And so since Malia was born, since my oldest child was born, I’ve brought them here every Christmas for the last 18 years now. And I want to make sure that when  they’re bringing their children here, or their grandchildren here, that they are able to appreciate the wonders and the beauty of this island and of the Pacific, and every island.”

Obama planned to visit Midway Atoll on Thursday. While there, the President is to see some of the ocean territory included in a marine national monument he expanded  an executive order issued last week.

 

Obama to commemorate Park Service anniversary at two preserves

Yosemite National Park is known for its meadows, valleys, and waterfalls. Image courtesy Wikimedia.

President Barack Obama will visit two national parks this month as he leads a celebration of the National Park Service’s 100th birthday.

The White House announced the trip to New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns National Park and California’s Yosemite National Park in a video released Thursday.

“I want to make sure that the whole world is able to pass on to future generations the God-given beauty of this planet,” Obama said in the video.

President John F. Kennedy was the last sitting chief executive to visit Yosemite National Park. President Benjamin Harrison signed legislation establishing that national park in 1890.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park, which is known for its many species of bats and the more than 100 caves it features, was created in 1930.

President Woodrow Wilson signed the National Park Service Organic Act into law on Aug. 25, 1916.

The Organic Act created the National Park Service and established its mission to “promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments, and reservations” and “conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”