What does the Inflation Reduction Act mean for climate, public lands, and outdoor recreation?
Photo credit: Peter Thomas
UPDATE August 7: The Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act today, a major hurdle for the largest-ever climate bill. Now is a crucial time for people who love the outdoors to ask their House members to act now to pass the package, and to thank their Senators (or express disappointment if they voted no).
Last week, in a stunning reversal, Senators Manchin and Schumer announced they had come to consensus on a package to address climate change, energy independence, health care, inflation, and the country’s deficit. The package, which will advance through a process called reconciliation as soon as this week, would be the largest climate bill ever and make huge strides to addressing the climate crisis, which has a profound effect on public lands and recreation.
The package, branded as the Inflation Reduction Act, contains $369 billion in climate provisions. While this is less than the $555 billion being negotiated last year, it is the biggest investment in the climate crisis in the nation’s history, and independent analysis estimates that it could reduce greenhouse gas emissions up to 44%.
While there have been numerous analyses of the bill at this point, here is Outdoor Alliance’s best breakdown of what the package will mean for public lands, outdoor recreation, and climate.
The Good:
Climate Investments:
By far, the most important piece of the legislation is the overall investments in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Addressing carbon emissions is an enormous and incredibly important way we can slow the climate crisis, protect people and communities, and prevent further damage. Climate change is the greatest existential threat to the U.S., as well as to public lands and outdoor recreation, and this bill is a historic effort to address climate change head-on. Most of these investments come in the form of tax incentives for emissions reductions and clean energy.
For the Forest Service, the bill includes more than two billion dollars for hazardous fuels reduction and restoration, as well as $50 million for protecting old growth forests and $100 million for more efficient environmental reviews. For much of the restoration funding, projects with a recreation component will receive priority in project selection.
For state and private forests, the bill includes funding for the Forest Legacy Program, which encourages private protection through conservation easements, and more than a billion dollars for grants for tree planting and green space focused especially on underserved populations.
Investments in Public Lands
Funding for National Parks and public land conservation and resilience, for ecosystem restoration, and for staffing for the National Park Service.
Changes to Oil and Gas Leasing, and Royalty Rates
The bill increases royalty rates for oil and gas leases to ensure taxpayers are getting a fair return. It increases the minimum lease bid to $10/acre (up from $2/acre); raises rental rates; establishes a new fee for nominating parcels for leasing; ends noncompetitive leasing; establishes minimum bonding requirements; and establishes fees for vented or flared methane produced by drillers.
The Not-So-Good:
Sticking with oil and gas for a moment, one provision that we are less than jazzed about would require the Department of Interior to offer a minimum acreage of oil and gas leases before allowing a right-of-way for renewable (wind or solar) energy development. The provision requires that Interior must both hold onshore oil & gas leases every quarter and offer 2 million acres or 50% of the acreage nominated by the industry for leasing annually.
Two million acres is significant, but by comparison, almost every year between 2009 and 2019, Interior offered more than 2 million acres for lease, averaging about 5 million acres of land per year. Only about a quarter of those acres received bids, however, and our hope is that the reforms outlined above—and others we hope to see enacted administratively—will put significant downward pressure on public lands drilling activity.
The Missing Pieces:
One of the biggest programs Outdoor Alliance advocated for was the Civilian Climate Corps, which would have been a win-win-win to create jobs, address the maintenance backlog on public lands, and build resilience to climate change on public lands and in local communities. While this piece of the package unfortunately did not make the cut, there may be additional opportunities to pursue this concept down the road.
What’s next:
Senator Schumer indicated that he wants the Senate to begin voting on the bill as soon as this week, which makes this week THE crucial moment for us to be reaching out to our members of Congress and strongly encouraging them to move forward on climate action. Keep in mind that this package was negotiated quite quietly by Senators Schumer and Manchin, and members of Congress are likely still evaluating the bill—and the sentiments of their constituents. You can make a difference by letting them know you’re stoked.
We’ve made it easy (truly, you can send a powerful note in under two minutes):