By Kate Groetzinger
As Joe Biden’s presidency comes to a close, the Center for Western Priorities reviewed his accomplishments in his final year in office to highlight the astonishing progress he and his administration made on public lands. As we said in last year’s report, the stage was set for President Biden to make 2024 one of the most consequential years in public lands history—the president and his team delivered.
Over the past four years, President Biden has made significant progress toward the national 30×30 goal, protecting more federal land and waters than any other president—about 674 million acres. He is expected to use the authority granted by the 1906 Antiquities Act next week to designate the Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands national monuments, establishing the final segment in a “Moab to Mojave Conservation Corridor” that is critical for biodiversity.
The Biden administration completed 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. These overdue and necessary reforms have set the stage for bringing public lands management into the 21st century for the benefit of communities, climate, and wildlife.
The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Senior Director of Advocacy Lauren Bogard:
“President Biden’s actions on public lands have raised the bar on what a president can accomplish in a single term and earned him the title of one of America’s greatest conservation presidents.
“Protecting America’s public lands and natural resources and strengthening government-to-government relationships with Tribal Nations were priorities of the Biden-Harris administration starting on day one, and the results are self-evident. Local leaders and advocates across the country have been working for decades to establish new protections for treasured landscapes and better safeguards for ensuring clean air and clean water in their communities. The close collaboration that occurred between those community leaders and the Biden administration to get many of those efforts over the finish line is like water on parched earth.”
Kate Groetzinger is Communications Manager for the Center for Western Priorities.