Biden's stingy oil-and-gas leasing seen as threat to Great American Outdoors Act

The 2020 Great American Outdoors Act, the largest federal conservation program in 50 years, is funded almost entirely by oil and natural gas production on public lands.

Steve Daines, the Montana Republican who sponsored the measure, warned that the anemic sales threaten the success of the act, which dedicates up to $1.9 billion annually to tackle the growing maintenance backlog at national parks and public lands.

“President Biden‘s misguided, dangerous energy policies not only stifle American energy production leading to higher prices at the pump and threaten our national security, they also cut critical funding for conservation of our nation’s public lands secured by my bipartisan ‘Great American Outdoors Act,’” Mr.

“The president wants to preserve our nation’s treasured public places yet fails to acknowledge that almost all the conservation funding is provided by the very energy sources he seeks to shut down,” said alliance President Kathleen Sgamma.

“Promises of ‘no more drilling’ would mean funding for national parks conservation and infrastructure would disappear in the coming years if those policies are fully enacted.”.

Only $11.5 million was provided by revenue from renewable energy, including wind and geothermal.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has praised the act, which also improves recreation opportunities on public lands by allocating $900 million in permanent annual funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

“Through the Great American Outdoors Act, we are making critical investments that will create tens of thousands of jobs, safeguard the environment, and help ensure that national parks and public lands are ready to meet the challenges of climate change and increased visitation,” Ms.

“The energy revenue from last year alone would be enough to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund for more than two decades,” said Mr.

“That’s just royalties, not leasing revenue, which is all the wind revenue was except for a paltry $5 million in royalties,” she said in an email.

She said it would “be great if renewables could provide funding, but if conservation relied on geothermal at $18 million and wind at $5 million (no royalties are received from solar), then only a measly $11.5 million would have gone into conservation.”.

Trump after winning bipartisan support in Congress, the Great American Outdoors Act has already had an impact at some of the nation’s best-known national parks