In 2020 Gallup released a poll announcing that environmental issues were once again a salient force in the minds of most Americans. Survey results indicated that as many respondents expressed support for environmental issues as did for the economy (PEW, 2020). While these results seem to bode well for environmental issues, they embody the broader challenge faced by policy makers and special interests. Public support for environmental issues ebbs and flows. It is fickle, transient, and often subject to more pressing social needs. It is therefore difficult to create effective legislation, tackle long-term issues like climate change, and reevaluate existing law, when the public’s focus is so fluid. This paper explores how these, and other challenges impact the areas of western rivers, mining on public lands, rangelands, and forest management.
When it comes to the impacts of climate change, water might be second only to rising temperatures. Yet, unlike temperatures, water is a resource that must be divided, shared, and conserved across a wide range of special interests from local municipalities to agricultural and industrial concerns. This is the primary focus of western river management and these concerns are currently playing out with the Colorado and Klamath rivers. At root is a competition for limited water supply between rural and urban interests. However, the issue is more complex. As Doug Kenny (n.d.) writes in his essay, The Changing Fate of Western Rivers, water levels at Lake Mead have consistently dropped for most of the last 20 years (p. 74). More troubling is that there is a growing body of evidence that suggests these trends are not drought related, but part of a broader aridification of the region (p. 75).
Nonetheless, legislative reform remains elusive in large part due to the array of competing priorities over water resources. For example, the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service each have interests in the Colorado river. The Karuk and Yurok tribes are principal partners in the demolition of three dams along the lower Klamath river (Greenson, 2022), and consumers have an interest in maintaining robust fisheries. As this example illustrates, environmental concerns are complex and often involve multiple special interests, from private to public, federal and state.
Similar competition between state, federal, tribal, and environmental concerns is evident in the issue of mining on public lands. Federal agencies administer approximately 350 million acres of public land which holds an abundance of natural resources with real economic value from timber and rivers to minerals and natural gas (Giordano, n.d.). What to do with these lands, who has access to them, and even their intrinsic value is all part of the public land debate. Furthermore, while the Bureau of Land Management is the largest administer of public land by acres, a number of federal agencies might exercise concerns over the same geography. For example, the Fish and Wildlife Service is predominantly concerned with animal species which may involve BLM land. Ultimately, political interests often determine how public land is used though these interests are often short-term and transient in nature.
Finally, rangelands and forest management share many philosophical concerns with western rivers and public land use. Much like the prior two issues, the model for how rangelands and forests are managed is rooted in 19th century politics, and much like the challenges faced by the BLM, the NFS must choose whether to open its land to resource extraction. As with the other agencies, decisions of the National Forest Service can carry adverse impacts to the domains of other agencies.
Beyond economic and legislative pressures, however, the NFS faces a unique challenge from wildfires (Toman, n.d.). While the threat of forest fires is not solely the domain of forestry, the impact of fires on forests is particularly strong. Forestry and wildfire management therefore represent a unique combination of concerns from timber, water, and air quality, to economic, urban, and wildlife management. As with all of the aforementioned issue areas, public policy, public will, and special interests represent the greatest challenges faced by federal agencies as they seek to manage our natural resources.
A common thread throughout public land policy, western river, forest, and rangeland management is their shared ancestry in 19th century politics. More generally, the policies associated with each are deeply influenced by expansionist priorities. For example, the Reclamation Act of 1902 recognized that water development was necessary to support western settlement and would form the basis for the Colorado River Compact of 1922 (Kenney, n.d. pp. 71, 72). Similarly, the Mining Act of 1872 was created, in part, to manage the flood of mining claims registered on federal lands (Giordano, n.d., p. 159). Finally, the Land ordinance of 1785 was an early version of federal land management policy, and a precursor to the Taylor Grazing act of 1934. In fact, in their essay, Western Rebellion, Drs. Simon et al, write, “the values of political actors during this period were largely shaped by a desire to significantly increase the size and influence of the United States” (Simon et al, n.d., p. 183). A sentiment embodied by not only the geographical expansion of the physical United States, but also its economic and political power as well. Furthermore, this mindset was accompanied by a belief that western resources were nearly infinite. As Eric Toman writes in his essay on fire management, there was a myth of superabundance about western resources. It was, as many thought, impossible to ever use them up (Toman, n.d. p. 59). Such dated policy is ill-equipped to handle the modern challenges of climate change and water scarcity. The Colorado River Compact, for example, was written following one of the wettest seasons on record (Kenney, n.d., p. 72). Updating this legislation to effectively manage resources in an era of diminishing supply not only involves political action, but also public will. Such action is an area of common ground between water, land, forest and rangeland management, however broad reform remains elusive.
In some cases, legislators might be slow to act because of competing special interests. In other cases, they simply may not identify with the issue. For example, the highly visual reduction of water in Lake Mead carries with it a sense of urgency, whereas the environmental implications of mining on public lands do not. For one thing, mining on public lands is not nearly as relatable as running out of water. In this regard, public land use represents another of the issues facing environmental concerns: public will. For many Americans, western states are distant places with distant concerns. Giordano’s (n.d.) essay, Mining on Federal Land, describes an inherent east-west divide over America’s natural resources. On the one hand, he says, Easterners seek to maximize the economic value of the west, while Westerners want to preserve the land for public enjoyment (p. 160). This cultural divide is certainly not exclusive to mining on public lands, but it serves to highlight how public perception is shaped by regional cultural priorities.
Mining on federal lands also engages the federal government in ways rangeland and water management do not. Giordano (n.d.) writes that the Mining Act of 1872 has numerous flaws. Among them, low environmental protection and minimal lack of developmental oversight (p. 162). While these may be relatively intuitive, Giordano adds that the Act lacks any sort of royalty program (p. 161), implying a private sector obligation where the federal government is paid dues like any other landowner. This is certainly a curious if not unprecedented theory of public and private sector relations, and it’s hard to imagine a similar relationship dictating access to fresh water.
If water and mining operations illustrate either end of public interest, rangeland and forest management are probably in the middle. Authors Simon et al (n.d.) write in their essay, Western Rebellion that ranching and land use policies are one of the preeminent examples of how policy creates constituencies (p. 185). This might suggest that ranching was a primarily western concern, however, at the time of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, nearly half of all U.S. Senators represented states with grazing lands (p. 185). Furthermore, rangeland and forestry are increasingly salient issues with the rise of forest fires and widespread regional air quality issues.
Much like the images of Lake Mead, a thick covering of wildfire smoke is difficult to ignore. On the one hand, such a clear manifestation of a climate issue ought to result in easy public policy and united public opinion. However, as Toman (n.d.) writes, there is no easy approach. A strict policy of containment has led to an increase in fires and fire intensity; yet letting the fires burn as the NFS’s current hybrid approach dictates, results in vast amounts of smoke. The wildfire issue, better than any other, captures how public opinion and legislative options can run diametrically opposed. The public demands a solution, but no solution is consequence-free.
Finally, special interests are likely to remain a significant force in environmental policy. Mining and timber companies want access to public lands, power companies want access to hydroelectric opportunities, and American Indian tribes seek to restore native habitats. Perhaps most relevant of all, agricultural interests require access to water, bringing the issues of food and water into direct competition. Yet recent developments in the Klamath river basin have proven that such competing interests are not mutually exclusive. In an example of successful collaborative management, Indian tribes, federal and state agencies, agricultural concerns, and industry worked together to remove three dams and restore the natural habitats of various sites along the Klamath river (Grable, 2023). The Colorado River, while still unresolved, is another example of collaborative management in progress. That said, collaborative management is not a one size fits all approach. For example, land management and resource extraction are very much the domain of presidential priorities and therefore take on a command-and-control quality, versus the more inclusive approach of collaborative management.
In summary, public opinion, public policy, and special interests will continue to be the major challenges to environmental policy over the coming years. Furthermore, while collaborative management has produced promising results in the domains of water management, this does not preclude the need for long-term legislative change. As demonstrated by the issues of mining, wildfire smoke, and water levels in Lake Mead, legislative change is difficult, even when facing dire circumstances. Ultimately, the path forward will require compromise and a combination of collaborative and command and control solutions.
References
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