July 14, 2021 |
The legislative committee that heard testimony from the BLM state office in late May about the Biden Administration’s 30 by 30 land policy has asked the governor to develop a plan to deal with the issue.
The 30 by 30 lan outlined in President Joe Biden’s executive order on climate change would put nearly 440 million acres — or 30 percent of U.S. lands and water — under federal protection by the year 2030. The legality of the policy, the mechanics of how it will be implemented, and what it means for Wyoming all remain unclear.
State Representative Donald Burkhart, who co-chairs the legislative committee that took testimony on the issue in May, says 30 by 30 is filled with unknowns.
Burkhart says the Select Federal Natural Resource Committee which he chairs wants the governor to get out in front of the issue to fill in some of the blanks. Following up on a question he asked at the hearing, the committee has sent a letter to Governor Mark Gordon asking him to fund a study to document all of the conservation efforts Wyoming has conducted so it can be given credit for them when the feds come calling.
Whether Wyoming will receive credit for its work is as unknown as the everything else about the program. During the May 26th meeting, Burkhart asked the BLM’s acting state director, Kimber Liebhauser if Wyoming’s work would be given credit during the May 26th meeting. Without clear direction from her bosses in Washington, D.C., Liebhauser offered only an opinion that was non-committal at best.
Rep. Burkhart said this week that the response to his question was expected given the top-down way the government operates. At the time of the May meeting, the BLM state office had not received any guidelines on how to implement the policies outlined in Biden’s executive order. Burkhart said he’s not sure that has changed since then.
Given the uncertainties and possible negative impacts on the state, Burkhart’s committee wants the governor to try to head off the Washington bureaucrats at the pass. The committee recommended that the governor set aside money to fund a database documenting the state’s conservation efforts in detail. The work won’t be cheap.
The half-million dollar figure was reached in consultation with Game and Fish, the Natural Wildlife Trust Fund and other agencies. The committee has recommended that the work to build the compendium of state conservation measures be performed by a private company that specializes in data-management rather than a state agency. Rep. Burkhart said the letter to the governor stressed a sense of urgency.
Burkhart said the 30 by 30 plan was developed originally by environmental groups, and that the White House is now listening to them rather than “the logic.”
