“A society that will not conserve its topsoil cannot preserve social order for long.”
Priorities for the 118th Congress
ConservAmerica seeks to build common ground between policymakers and stakeholders around policies that protect the environment and economic growth. Our priorities are conservation; public land access; clean, abundant, and affordable energy; and sound environmental stewardship.
During the 118th Congress, ConservAmerica will pursue a proactive agenda that builds off our accomplishments and the momentum we have generated in recent years. We will continue to develop and advocate for policies that protect the environment, unlock our country’s abundant natural resources, spur technological innovation, and ensure the efficient and transparent use of taxpayer dollars. Toward this end, ConservAmerica will work with members of Congress to support legislative and oversight efforts that ensure existing programs are being implemented in a timely manner and are consistent with Congressional intent. Working closely with the bicameral Roosevelt Conservation Caucus, whose members have successfully pushed for major reforms of the country’s environment and energy legal and regulatory framework, our priorities will include:
Expanding the use of natural solutions to environmental challenges, including through active forest management and land use practices and through the restoration of the oceans’ capacity to sequester carbon and maintain healthy fisheries.
Updating antiquated regulatory policies that discourage investment in clean energy and mineral resource needs. This includes legislative efforts to update and reform the permitting system and provide liability protections that will encourage environmental cleanup efforts.
Incentivizing innovation and the deployment of cleaner, more efficient technologies, including nuclearenergy, storage, and carbon capture.
Encouraging competitive markets and the export/trade of clean American energy and manufactured products.
Managing America’s public lands and waters in a manner that balances resource development, recreation, and conservation needs.
Focusing on species recovery and local and private sector solutions to wildlife and habitat challenges.
Additionally, we will work toward the enactment of two important pieces of legislation that gained bipartisan momentum in the 117th Congress:
The Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act, which provides liability protections for third parties seeking to clean up abandoned mine sites.
The Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, which provides resources to states and territories to help save threatened species and avoid costly, federal “endangered” listing requirements.
CONSERVATION
Each of us is responsible for ensuring the land that shaped our heritage and culture is well cared for and continues to define who we are for generations. As conservatives, we live our conservation values every day. Whether we are farmers, hunters, fishermen or all of the above, we care for the land and water because they are what sustain our bodies and our souls. Too often, though, “environmentalism” is an excuse to impose intrusive and costly government mandates and regulations when better solutions are available. At ConservAmerica, we focus on pathways to responsible stewardship that harness the power of the free market, property rights, and the American spirit of entrepreneurialism while prioritizing local voices in the decision-making process. We support solutions that embrace public-private collaborations and innovation.
ACCESS
Our connection with the great outdoors is fundamental to our happiness, well-being and personal development. Therefore providing access to recreational opportunities, including hunting and fishing, on publicly owned lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations is a top priority. Our public lands and the resources they contain are an important part of the American story, adding to the strength and stature of the nation and providing a source of revenue for national, state and local needs.
The federal government manages roughly 640 million acres of prairies, forests, rivers and lakes, deserts, mountains, and wetlands across the United States. That’s roughly 28 percent of the nation’s 2.27 billion acres. Management of those lands must balance a number of competing priorities, including protection, recreation and the development of natural resources. The extent to which federal lands should be made available for development, opened to recreation or preserved is often controversial and can put different user groups in conflict with each other. Federal land managers must strive to be as inclusive as possible, while ensuring that the economies of states with higher percentages of federal land are not disadvantaged.
The amount and percentage of federally owned land in each state varies - from 0.3 percent in Connecticut and Iowa to nearly 80 percent in Nevada. The overwhelming majority of federal land is concentrated in the West. In Alaska, more than 61 percent of the land is federally owned. In the Lower 48, the federal government controls over 46 percent of the land in 11 western states, including California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. By contrast, the federal government owns just 4.2 percent of lands in the other states.
Revitalization
Mining and timber are important industries in the West. ConservAmerica supports policies that focus on revitalizing the economies of mining and timber communities through sustainable development practices, active resource management and public-private initiatives.
Active forest management not only provides a sustainable source of timber for rural economies but also plays a crucial role in returning our public forests to a healthy state. The alternative is catastrophic fire and less resilient landscapes.
Our economic prosperity and high standard of living depend on our ability to harness the power of our natural resources through extraction. This is especially true of our efforts to transition to a low-carbon economy through the transformation of our energy and transportation sectors. Our capacity to produce renewable energy technologies, batteries and electric vehicles, depends on our access, through mining or trade, to affordable supplies of copper, aluminum, iron ore, borates and titanium dioxide. However, the United States is dependent on China and a handful of other countries for nearly all of its supplies of critical minerals. We cannot achieve our clean energy goals without a domestic mining industry.
BETTER ENERGY CHOICES
America has made great strides in meeting its energy needs through innovation and the development of technologies that have delivered economic growth and energy abundance and affordability while progressively reducing environmental impacts. Our nation must remain competitive in order to continue the research and development needed to ensure access both here and abroad to energy that is abundant, affordable, clean, reliable and secure. The most efficient way to achieve these goals is through policies that encourage competitive markets, private investment, and expanded trade. Policymakers should resist the urge to impose centralized regulations that place a drag on the economy without delivering measurable environmental benefits.
“There is nothing more conservative than conservation.”