Ahead of a trip to Colorado and Utah this week, presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced her public lands policy platform on Monday. Among her top proposals are a moratorium on new fossil fuel drilling leases, expanding renewable energy production on public lands, and creating thousands of new jobs in restoring and maintaining federal lands.
“America’s public lands are one of our greatest treasures. They provide us with clean air and water, sustain our fish and wildlife, and offer a place where millions of Americans go every year to experience the beauty of our natural environment,” Warren wrote in a Medium post announcing the platform. “But today, those lands are under threat. The Trump administration is busy selling off our public lands to the oil, gas, and coal industries for pennies on the dollar — expanding fossil fuel extraction that destroys pristine sites across the country while pouring an accelerant on our climate crisis.”
In 2017, the Trump administration rolled back protections on more than 2 million acres of public lands, exposing sites like Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah to mining and drilling. President Trump has also proposed opening up the country’s coastline to offshore drilling.
In addition to restoring protections for the Utah monuments, Warren would issue a moratorium on new fossil fuel leases, “including for drilling offshore and on public lands.” And more than just “end[ing] our public lands’ contribution to climate change,” she would “make them a part of the climate solution” by generating 10 percent of the country’s renewable energy — more than 10 times the current amount — on public lands.
Warren’s plan also includes increased maintenance and restoration of public lands. She would fully fund the agencies that oversee public lands and “eliminate the infrastructure and maintenance backlog on our public lands in my first term.” Additionally, she proposes a renewal of the FDR-era Civilian Conservation Corps, which employed workers during the Great Depression. Under her proposal, 10,000 young people and veterans would be employed in one-year fellowships through AmeriCorps to maintain public lands.
She also wants to make all national parks free to the public, and to “meaningfully incorporate” input and knowledge of tribal communities in the management of public lands.
Green groups responded well to the proposal. Sharon Buccino, a senior adviser to the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, told the New York Times that the proposal is “just what America needs.”
Janet Redman, climate director for Greenpeace USA, told HuffPost that Warren’s proposal demonstrates “a clear willingness to lead in taking on the fossil fuel industry, and making climate action a top priority in office.”
Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders also made news Monday by endorsing a moratorium on mergers in the agriculture sector. Warren proposed such a moratorium as part of her rural policy platform, released in advance of the Iowa Heartland Forum in March. Sanders also called for breaking up big agribusiness companies, echoing another of Warren’s proposals.
“[W]e’ve not only got to have that moratorium, but we have to go further. … We have to start breaking them up,” Sanders said in an interview with HuffPost. Taking on big agribusiness has become a central concern for candidates looking for rural votes. Last year, Sen. Cory Booker, also a presidential candidate, introduced legislation that would impose an 18-month moratorium on food and agriculture mergers.
Sanders echoed another of Warren’s talking points by discussing the national security risks associated with foreign ownership of American farmland. “We don’t survive if we don’t eat,” he said. “And I do not want our agricultural land to be in the control of people who may not have the best interests of the United States at heart.”