With the departure of the Trump administration, many conservation organizations are asking President-elect Biden to reverse some of his predecessor’s actions affecting public lands and the environment. There are concerns over new Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act regulations and, of course, President Trump’s splintering of the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments in Utah.
The Biden administration will need the help of Congress to undo the full slate of Trump administration policies affecting public lands, including national parks. But there are straightforward and immediate actions the new team can take, such as reversing executive orders prioritizing extraction over conservation and reinstating lands removed from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, when it takes office on January 20.
Among the first steps will be to name an acting director to steer the National Park Service and rebuild trust with the career staff until the Senate confirms a permanent director, said John Leshy, emeritus professor at UC Hastings Law School, and solicitor at the Interior Department during the Clinton Administration.
Neither the National Park Service nor the Bureau of Land Management had a permanent director under President Trump. Instead, acting directors have been responsible for guiding the agencies.
“This has had a huge impact on employee morale and been detrimental to instructional reforms and planning,” said Brandon Bragato, staff director, House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest and Public Lands, in an email. He believes it’s important for the incoming Park Service nominee to have agency experience.
Bragato keeps a list of issues on the subcommittee’s radar for the upcoming 117th Congress. At the top is implementation of the Great American Outdoors Act, Public Law 116-152, enacted last summer. The law provides $1.9 billion annually to Interior agencies and the U.S. Forest Service for deferred maintenance projects, such as critical bridge repairs and campground improvements, in fiscal years 2021-2025. The Biden administration will be responsible for prioritizing deferred maintenance projects when it submits its budget request to Congress in February.
“We want to make sure the highest priority projects get funded. It’s really important that the money gets spread around and not just go to the biggest parks with the most visitation,” said Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs, National Parks and Conservation Association.
The Great American Outdoors Act also provides funding for land acquisition through the Land and Water Conservation Fund. However, the Trump administration hampered implementation when it issued Secretarial Order 3388 in November establishing criteria, including requiring written support from county and state governments prior to an acquisition.
“This undercuts what a landowner can do with their own private property, and creates unnecessary, additional levels of bureaucracy,” said U.S. Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) in a news release.
NPCA has provided the Biden transition team a 40-page document highlighting the organization’s priorities, including repeal of Secretarial Order 3388, as well as Executive Orders 13783 and 13867 promoting energy extraction.
These orders can be revoked with the “stroke of a pen” said Leshy. He co-chaired Obama’s transition team and was the head of the Clinton-Gore transition at the Interior Department.
U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland is Biden's nominee to lead the Interior Department.
It’s also simple to reinstate Obama-era policies, such as National Park Service Director’s Order 100 encouraging the precautionary principle and adaptive management to address climate change impacts at parks, an order supported by environmental organizations. Tribal consultation will likely occur regularly under the leadership of U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM), a citizen of the federally recognized Laguna Pueblo tribe, who Biden has named to lead the Interior Department.
“Taking seriously the obligation to consult with Native American tribes about all matters that affect them is a legal, and sacred, obligation of the entire federal government, and the Department of the Interior should lead by example in implementing it," said Renee Stone, formerly NPS chief of staff and now senior adviser to the president and chief executive officer at Defenders of Wildlife.
Aside from restoring the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, cut by Trump by 85 percent and 50 percent, respectively, in 2017, the Biden administration can also reestablish the ban on commercial fishing in Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, home to endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle as well as sperm and fin whales off the coast of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. President Trump removed the ban this past June.
All three areas were established using the authority given to the president in the Antiquities Act -- Grand Staircase by President Clinton, and Bears Ears and Northeast Canyons by President Obama -- and modifications do not require an act of Congress
“Revising some of the anti-environment regulatory changes advanced by the previous administration will require more attention and public process, but are worth the effort, particularly changes made to regulations that implement the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and a host of regulations addressing climate change,” said Stone.
A new rulemaking can take 1-3 years to implement and is required to revoke final regulations. But there are ways to fast track the process, said Leshy. For example, for regulations facing court challenge, such as the final NEPA rule that made it easier to push through major projects with less extensive environmental reviews and public input, the Justice Department could advise the court that the new administration agrees with the plaintiffs, and supports reinstatement of the old regulations. The court could accept the new position.
To improve transparency and ethics, the Ethics and Freedom of Information Act offices should be removed from the solicitor’s bailiwick and returned to Interior’s Office of Policy, Management and Budget where they were located pre-Trump. Trump and Interior have “stiff-armed the press and Congress on releasing documents,” said Leshy, but this is less likely to happen if civil servants – not political appointees – are responsible for following the law.
Other items on the upcoming Congressional agenda include programmatic legislation for national heritage areas as well the reauthorization and update of the Federal Lands Recreational Enhancement Act. The authorization for FLREA has expired, but the Congress has issued multiple extensions in appropriations laws. FLREA allows revenues collected by Interior and the Forest Service from recreation fees to be used for maintenance, operations, and improvements at recreation facilities.
Under Biden, diversity, equity, and inclusion should be an “across the board priority” affecting interpretation at National Park Service sites, human resources, theme studies, and cultural resource management, said Bragato. He’s also interested in U.S. Park Police reform, and supports an increase in the agency’s operations budget.
A Trump effort allowing oil and gas drilling in parts of the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska will require a new law to reverse. The provision authorizing oil and gas leasing in the refuge, home to polar bears, musk oxen, and migratory birds, and the calving grounds for the Porcupine caribou, was tucked into the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 enacted when Republicans controlled the House, Senate, and the White House.
“It’s hard to predict what is possible in a closely divided Congress. We hope the new administration will push to fund federal agencies adequately. Progress might be possible on an infrastructure bill, which could provide needed funds to address restoration on federal lands, climate resilience programs, a conservation job corps, and other needed park and refuge upgrades,” said Stone.
Democrats control the House and the outcome of a special election in Georgia on January 5 will determine whether Republicans remain in the majority in the Senate.
Given the slim margin in both bodies, laws impacting public lands, such as new additions to the National Park System, will likely require bipartisan support.
Haaland, Biden’s nominee for Interior secretary, will give up her seat in Congress and role as chair of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands. Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee, led by Chair Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), will select the next subcommittee chair by secret ballot.
On the Senate side, John Barrasso (R-WY) is expected to lead the Republicans on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee where public lands issues are considered. Outgoing chair Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is term-limited by Republican caucus rules. Joe Manchin (D-WV) will continue to lead the Democrats on this committee.
Tom Udall (D-NM), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, is retiring. This means there will also be a new ranking member on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee affecting Interior’s budget.
The nominees to head all land management agencies, along with the Secretary of the Interior, will face Senate confirmation.
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EXCELLENT observations, D-2.
One of the problems facing the NPS is that those of us who were there in the days of Reagan and his following fans have all retired now. And so our knowledge is being shoved aside by more recent poltical messes.
I'm really, really hoping that in about 19 days some semblance of sanity may begin to return America.
More reasons to support the Coalition to Protect America's Parks.
Park advocates claimed that President Trump did not have the authority to unilaterally undue President Obama's executive orders (i.e. reduce Bears Ears NM) but some of those same voices now claim President Biden does have the ability to undue President Trump's orders.
It's almost as if...you think we're stupid.
Loui, its not about whether one president may undo another's executive orders or not. Its about whether a president can remove from a national monument, by executive order, territory that was placed within the monument by any president's previous order. Inclusion (whether creation or expansion) by proclamation is not in question; it is explicitly permitted by law (the Antiquities Act). Removal by proclamation is what's in question. By the way, this has been made clear in basically every news article or history ever written about this; seems odd you didn't pick up on that most basic aspect of the question. Perhaps some more background study before coming to any further premature opinions?
dscott is right. There are several court decisions upholding expansions of monuments- notably Cappaert v US (1976) and US v California (1978). While there have been reductions of monuments in the past by presidents , they were, with 2 exceptions , small in size (the exceptions were a 300000 acre reduction of Mount Olympus national moument (now Olympic National Park) in 1915 by Wilson, and a 70000 acre reduction of the second Grand Canyon national monument by FDR in 1940) and were under the auspices of a 1915 Supreme Court decision called Midwest Oil, that Congress explicitly overturned in 1976 as part of the passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.
So even if presidents prior to 1976 could shrink monuments via implied powers, Congress overturning the SC ruling removed all implied powers from the president, and ensured only Congress going forward could shrink monuments, which they have done exactly once, in 1996, when a 315 acre piece of Craters of the Moon NM was shaved off in order to put a road in. Clinton added 661000 acres to the monument in 2000, and Congress turned much of the expansion into a preserve a few years later. Congress also expressly forbade the Interior Secretary from making any changes to existing monuments in section 204j of FLPMA. So, Zinke's recommendations to shrink Bears Ears , Grand Staircase Escalante, and others, violated the law. Trump also violated the law by acting on those recommendations.
Trump wasnt the first president to inquire about shrinking or undoing monuments, Hes merely the first to actually go through with it , even though its illegality has been pretty much the legal consensus since 1976. (Otherwise Reagan would surely have shrunk or abolished some or all of Carters 17 natiional monuments in Alaska. That he didnt shows that even Reagan concluded he couldnt do that). in the 30s FDR considered abolishing Castle Pinckney National monument in South Carolina, since it wasnt getting much visitation and it didnt have the cache of neighboring Fort Sumter. He asked his AG Homer cummings to look into the matter. Cummmings held in his report that the president could not revoke a national monument, writing that the power to designate monuments was a sacred trust given to the president by Congress, and the president could no more destroy his own work (monuments he created) than he could the work of his predecessors. FDR accepted this finding and left it up to Congress to abolish the monument, which it eventually did in 1956. Apparently, no thought was given to simply merging the monument into Fort Sumter and have Pinckney become a sub-unit of Sumter, as was done in 1960 for Fort Moultrie.
The other president to seriously consider shrinking or revoking monuments was George W Bush (Bush 43). Upon taking office he asked his AG Gale Norton to investigate whether he could shrink or undo some of Clinton's late term monuments, 18 of Clinton's then -record 19 monuments were created in 2000 or 2001. Norton investigated the matter and told Bush he had no authority to shrink monuments or undo them, citing Cummings 1938 findings. Like FDR Bush accepted this finding, and ended up setting aside 6 monuments of his own, a modern record for a Republican president. in 2004 the Bush administration won a court case concerning marine areas within Glacier Bay NP in Alaska, successfully arguing that once established, a monument and its borders were permanent unless Congress acted to shrink or undo the monument (which, again it almost never does).
Thusly, what Trump did violated the law on several grounds, and frankly the courts should not have taken over 3 years to rule to overturn the reductions. the actions of FDR and Bush 43, along with section 204j of FLPMA, should have been cited within weeks in overturning the reductions and reverting management to the Obama-era guidelines. Biden can restore the areas cut out, but having a court ruling holding the actions were illegal and thus null and void, is a stronger base for him to act to expand Bears Ears, than just doing it on Day 1 with a executive order voiding Trumps EO. Settle the illegality of the action, and you prevent future presidents from trying that stunt.
When I started working in the national parks more than two decades ago, I never dreamed I would be dealing with the most political and most illogical agency possible in the NPS.
It is clear that the level of debt this nation is in has skyrocketed, and our grandchildren and generations beyond will suffer. We cannot afford to maintain the lands the federal government owns now, and have not been able to for many years- this isn't a Trump problem, as much the hate filled people on this site would like to believe. Acquiring more land is the absolute epitomy of absurdity. The amount of land the federal goverenment owns now should be reevaluated and parts sold off!
There is absolutely no logic in believing that the federal government is the best steward of anything whatsoever. Over the years, there isn't a single agency in the federal government that hasn't become a giant bloated FUBAR filled to overflowing with bureaucrats full of themselves. Bureaucrats who know how to manipulate the media into selling the public into believing that more of the agency- more of the federal government is the solution for everything. This includes the Department of the Interior and NPS This is purely delusional.
I am in the process of trying to find work outside of the parks at this time. Once I leave, I sincerely doubt I will spend one more day or dollar in the parks.
Well, concerned park employee, although I could not disagree with you more, I do hope you are successful in finding "work outside of the parks" and that you are never again called upon to "spend one more day or dollar in the parks."
It's clear from your statements about how "the level of debt this nation is in has skyrocketed" that you have either forgotten or perhaps never understood, one, that our federal government was deeply in debt in 1992 at the end of twelve years of republican incompetence, corruption, and profligate spending to support that corruption; two, that our federal government was running a fiscal surplus eight years later in the last years of the Clinton/Gore Administration; three, that much of the progress made on the budget in those eight years was the result of Gore's work on streamlining government and reducing corruption and waste; four, that pretty much all of what Gore achieved over those years was subsequently destroyed and reversed after the fraudulent election in Florida in November of 2000 brought republicans back into power; five, that over the eight years of republican incompetence, corruption, and profligate spending during the Bush/Cheney Administration, our country went deeply back into debt; six, that it took eight subsequent years of the Obama/Biden Administration to get America back on the right path; and, seven, although the "the level of debt this nation is in has skyrocketed" again, it has much more to do with the republican Trump Administration's incompetence, corruption, and profligate spending to support that corruption in general and relatively very little to do with anything specifically related to our public lands, protected lands, or national parks because, frankly, the republicans have been spending little on them and taking more out of them. Oh... and I forgot item number eight. You're really not very well versed in what you're talking about.
Again, I hope you're successful in finding "work outside of the parks" and that you're never again called upon to "spend one more day or dollar in the parks." If you really have ever been a "park employee" at all, I have to believe you had to have been an extremely poor fit for the job. I don't believe you have a good grasp of our history... absolutely no grasp of the mission or purpose of the country, much less the NPS. Given your beliefs, I am at a loss to understand why you're trolling a website dedicated to our parks and park lovers. I'm sorry you didn't like spending your time working in the national parks; most of us would give our eye teeth for the opportunity.
Well said HP!
To Concerned, so where did you work and what did you do that would give you a basis for your diatribe??
Also, do you have any Verifiable Facts to support your rather broad and unsubstantiated statements??
believe me, concerned park employee, we all hope you find work outside the parks very, very soon as well. maybe the NPS employee satisfaction survey score will edge up a bit.