Nature's Voice Spring 2021

SPRING 2021

’ NATURE SVOICE For the 3 million Members and online activists of the Natural Resources Defense Council

IN THIS ISSUE

Robert Thompson, an Iñupiat elder, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

New Hope for Rapid Climate Progress Permit Denied, Pebble Mine Now All But Dead NRDC Fights to Reverse Trump-Era Attacks on Federal Lands Lawsuit Seeks to Restore Wolf Protections

NRDC works to safeguard the earth—its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends.

MCCARTHY IS NEW CLIMATE CZAR

Our loss is undoubtedly the country’s gain.

NRDC President Gina McCarthy made history when she joined the Biden–Harris administra­tion as the first ever National Climate Advisor.

Reporting directly to the president, McCarthy now heads the newly formed White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy, which will coordinate a National Climate Taskforce charged with delivering an all-of-government response to the climate crisis. Previously, McCarthy led the Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama. Her move is both a testament to the quality of NRDC’s work and a sign of the new administration’s commitment to serious climate action.

In announcing her departure, McCarthy said, “Leading NRDC has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career. This was a difficult decision to make, but ultimately I could not refuse such a profound opportunity to be of service to our movement, our country, and our future.”

NRDC’s work will continue as strong as ever under the steady guidance of Executive Director Mitch Bernard, a 32-year veteran of the organization who has assumed the role of interim president.

COURT AXES DIRTY POWER PLAN

The timing couldn’t have been sweeter. On the Trump administration’s last full day in office, its climate-wrecking legacy was dealt a crushing legal blow: A federal appeals court, siding with NRDC and our allies, rejected the administration’s attempt

to replace President Obama’s landmark Clean Power Plan with a pro-polluter plan that would have increased pollution from coal-fired power plants. The ruling paves the way for the Biden– Harris administration to quickly set standards that will aggressively and effectively cut carbon emissions in the power sector.

C OV E R A RT I C L E

NEW HOPE FOR RAPID CLIMATE PROGRESS

W

ith global temperatures rising and the devastating impacts of worsening climate change being felt around the world, a drastic shift in U.S. leadership could hardly have come soon enough. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have put forward the boldest climate plan of any White House administration ever, and NRDC’s team of science and policy experts have been busy strategizing ways to transform that historic vision into swift progress.

Even before his inauguration, Biden signaled that tackling the climate crisis would be a top priority of his administration, including the landmark appointment of NRDC’s own Gina McCarthy as National Climate Advisor (see related article on this page). Among the key transformative provisions of the Biden–Harris climate plan being championed by NRDC: restoring U.S. climate leadership on the inter­national stage as the country reenters the Paris Agreement; ending the federal government’s outsize

role in subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, starting with a moratorium on new fossil fuel development on public lands; and advancing climate solutions that simultaneously address longstanding racial and economic inequities, including the Biden–Harris pledge to direct 40 percent of investment in clean energy and transit, sustainable housing, training, workforce development, and cleanup of legacy pollution toward communities of color and low-income communities.

“Four years of the last administration’s stubborn climate denial and pandering to the fossil fuel industry cost us precious time, to be sure,” says NRDC Executive Director and interim president Mitch Bernard. “But what’s clear now is that there is incredible momentum for climate action.”

The Biden–Harris message that we can rebuild our economy and put Americans back to work with good-paying jobs while moving quickly toward a clean energy future resounded with voters nationwide. What’s more, when climate-saving initiatives

were on the ballot, in cities as diverse as Denver, San Antonio, and Columbus, Ohio, they passed with overwhelming support. “NRDC has been on the ground at the state and local level pushing climate progress forward,” says Bernard. “Now we’re excited to be doing that on a national scale.”

Former NRDC president Gina McCarthy speaks after being named the country's first National Climate Advisor.

S P E C I A L R E P O RT

The environmental campaigns and victories featured in Nature’s Voice are all made possible through your generous support.

You can help NRDC defend the environment by making a special contribution.

NRDC.ORG/GIVE

Permit Denied, Pebble Mine Now All But Dead In a stunning victory for citizen activism, the Army Corps of Engineers has denied a permit for the Pebble Mine in Alaska. The decision strikes a near-fatal blow to the copper and gold mega-mine, which threatened to destroy the magnificent Bristol Bay water­shed and its legendary runs of wild salmon. “Amen to greater certainty for this cherished area, the Native tribes and community of Bristol Bay, and its wildlife and waters,” says NRDC Western Director Joel Reynolds. “This region has been whipsawed with uncertainty about its fate for almost two decades.”

Indeed, just 10 years ago it appeared all but certain that a consor-

tium of multinational mining giants would gouge one of the world’s largest open-pit mines out of the pristine wilderness at the headwaters of Bristol Bay. But fierce local opposition, relentlessly backed by NRDC and our Members, succeeded in making the project an inter­ na­tional pariah. Ultimately, one lone Canadian company, Northern Dynasty Minerals, was left to try to win permit approval from the Trump administration. NRDC will continue to support our Native partners in their fight now for federal action that would per­ manently block Pebble or any other mega-mine in Bristol Bay.

GINA MCCARTHY © CAROLYN KASTER/AP; MORROW BAY POWER PLANT © NATALIA LEEN/ISTOCK; BROWN BEAR © PAUL SOUDERS/GETTY IMAGES

G O O D N EWS

CA M PA I G N U P DAT E

NRDC FIGHTS TO REVERSE TRUMP-ERA ATTACKS ON FEDERAL LANDS

T

“We’re eager to be starting a new chapter, one that sees protecting public lands—not exploiting them—as truly serving the greatest public good.”

Clockwise from top left: Toadstool hoodoo rock formation in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah; Robert Thompson, an Iñupiat elder, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska; Mount Crested Butte in Gunnison National Forest, Colorado; polar bear mother and cub in the Arctic Refuge

Service announced a sweeping rollback aimed at opening up national forests to industrial activities like mining, logging, and roadbuilding by sidestepping environmental reviews. By the end of December, the Trump administration had auctioned off yet another 200,000 acres of federal land across the West at fire-sale prices for oil and gas drilling.

Meanwhile, NRDC raced to court to stop the administration from approving destructive drilling in southeastern Utah’s newly protected Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness and from stripping vital protections from the Tongass National Forest in

Alaska (see related article, next page). We also filed a separate court action aimed at halting oil and gas development within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

In all, Trump left office with the ignoble distinction of having handed over a staggering four million acres of federal land for fossil fuel production, an area larger than the state of Connecticut.

The sheer scale and audacity of his administration’s assault on the bed­rock foundations that support the country’s century-old commitment to wilderness preservation were unprecedented.

“From the get-go, it was clear that Trump and his lieutenants were simply going to ignore the law,” Buccino says. That included Trump’s illegal attempt early in his administration to radically downsize two national monuments in Utah—Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante—by more than two million acres. It also encompassed his later efforts to unlawfully open the spectacular Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in the Atlantic to commercial fishing and to reverse the federal ban on offshore oil and gas drilling across more than 125 million acres of the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans. As Nature’s Voice went to press, NRDC was continuing to fight in court on each of these fronts, and many more. “We expect the Biden–Harris administration will reverse a number of Trump’s attacks, but we have to stay in court until that happens or the case is resolved,” says Buccino.

Even as Indigenous communities have been on the front lines against extractive assaults for much of U.S. history, they especially bore the brunt of the Trump administration’s extremist attacks. From the fight of the Gwich’in and other Native Alaskans to defend the ancient birthing ground of caribou in the [Continued on next page.]

RED ROCKS © NEALE CLARK/ROBERT HARDING VIA ALAMY; INUPIAT ELDER © BRENNAN LAGASSE; GUNNISON NATIONAL FOREST © EFRAIN PADRO/ALAMY; POLAR BEARS © MINDEN PICTURES

alk about whiplash. On any number of important issues, the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris undoubtedly marked a profound turning point for the United States. But for the team of litigators and policy advocates at NRDC who have spent more than four years waging an all-out counteroffensive against former president Trump’s relentless attacks on our wildlands, the shift to a new administration has been nothing short of radical.

“We’ve seen the pendulum swing before, between administrations that were either more or less inclined to open federal lands to extractive industries,” says Sharon Buccino, a 25-year veteran of NRDC and senior director of the Nature Program’s Land Division. “But never has it been this extreme.”

Buccino points out that, on the one hand, the fight to reverse Trump’s destructive legacy goes on. “We’re talking about cleaning up the wreckage of what was arguably the worst assault on wildland conservation ever launched by a modern American president,” she says. “That takes time.” On the other hand, there is “tremendous optimism” surrounding the paradigm shift represented by Biden and Harris, who campaigned on a vision for public lands that reflects the one NRDC and our Members have been championing for years. “Finally we have an administration that seems to recognize that the protection of public lands is fundamental to addressing some of the most pressing crises we face,” Buccino says, “whether we’re talking about climate change, equity and social justice, or the loss of biodiversity.”

In the wake of November’s historic election, the contrast between outgoing and incoming administrations could not have been more head-spinning.

As Biden was announcing an A-list team to carry out his environmental agenda—including the barrier-breaking nomination of Deb Haaland to lead the Interior Department—the Trump administration was moving at breakneck speed to give over as much public land to industry as possible before time ran out. Two weeks after the election, the Forest

[Continued from previous page.]

As part of the Trump administration’s wide-ranging assault on the Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced last fall that it was stripping wolves of their protections under the landmark law in the Lower 48 states. NRDC has sued to reverse the agency’s unlawful decision, which was made far too soon: Wolves once roamed across most of the continental United States, but by the mid-20th century they were on the brink of extinction. Though the species has made significant strides since receiving federal protections in the 1970s, it has yet to recover across much of its historic range.

Tongass Narrows, Ketchikan, Alaska

Tongass National Forest Faces New Threats Amid a frenzy of anti-environment attacks during its final months, the Trump administration announced it was dropping “roadless” protections for more than nine million acres of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, threatening to open more than half of the earth’s largest remaining temperate rainforest to clearcut logging and other destructive development. NRDC and our allies, including local Native Alaskan groups, have filed suit to block the move.

Often compared to the Amazon for its ecological significance, the Tongass encompasses the ancestral homelands of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian people,

and many Indigenous communities continue to rely on the forest for wild food harvesting and traditional lifeways. Scores of wildlife species depend on the Tongass as well, including brown bears, wolves, Sitka black-tailed deer, and all five species of Pacific salmon. With many of its trees between 300 and 1,000 years old, the Tongass by itself stores as much as 8 percent of the amount of carbon found in all the forests growing in the Lower 48 states. “We’ve fought for decades to protect the Tongass,” says NRDC Alaska Director Niel Lawrence. “And we’ll keep on suing if that’s what it takes to fend off this outrageous move.”

TONGASS © ISTOCK; PROTESTERS © NRDC; GRAY WOLF © SHUTTERSTOCK

Arctic Refuge from an onslaught of oil development, to the battles of tribes in the Southwest to protect lands of immense cultural significance such as Bears Ears and the Greater Chaco region of New Mexico, time and again the Trump administration tried to steamroll Native opposition to advance its radical pro-extraction agenda. Biden and Harris have vowed to change that, and Biden’s nomination of Haaland marked a promising first step. A member of the Pueblo of Laguna, Haaland is poised to become the first Native American to lead the Interior Department, which has a long history of displacing Indigenous people from their lands.

What’s more, Biden and Harris have pledged to follow the scientific consensus that sees the conservation of our remaining wild places as critical to the battle against both climate change and the current extinction crisis. NRDC will work closely with the Biden–Harris administration to implement the president’s embrace of 30x30, the campaign to protect 30 percent of lands and oceans by 2030, which will safeguard natural climate solutions while preserving important habitat for imperiled species.

Intact ecosystems like forests and wetlands absorb vast amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, and the landmark 2019 U.N. report on biodiversity cited the reversal of widespread habitat destruction as essential to staving off the extinction of up to a million species. Says Buccino, “We’re eager to be turning the page and starting a new chapter, one that sees protecting public lands—not exploiting them— as truly serving the greatest public good.”

Lawsuit Seeks to Restore Wolf Protections

Gray wolf

Campus Grub Could Be More Climate Friendly

Students protest at Aramark’s annual shareholder meeting.

College cafeterias could soon be putting climate action on their menus. In a letter to 3,000 college presidents, NRDC has called on them to consider whether the food service companies that provide on-campus meals— which rank as some of the largest food sellers in the nation—are serious about fighting climate change.

These companies can help universities curb emissions by reducing the volume of climate-intensive foods that they purchase, like meat and dairy. Beef production, for instance, generates a whopping 34 times more greenhouse gas emissions than beans and lentils. While some food service companies have established explicit, time-

bound commitments to reduce emissions, others— like Aramark, the country’s second-largest seller of food—have not.

The call to action comes as many universities reassess their dining hall operations and renegotiate contracts in the wake of Covid-19. “Campus dining halls across the country serve tens of thousands of students each day,” says NRDC Health Campaigns Director Sujatha Bergen. “Universities should ensure that the companies in charge of providing this food are doing so with climate in mind—for the sake of their own emissions reduction goals as well as their students’ futures.”

“The crux of the issue is, what does it mean to recover a species?” asks Sylvia Fallon, senior director of the Wildlife Conser­vation project at NRDC. “While we don’t expect wolves to exist everywhere they were centuries ago, they still need to rebound more broadly to ensure the species’ long-term survival.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service justified its decision by narrowly looking at the recovery of just a handful of isolated wolf populations while ignoring its own legal obligation to design and implement a national wolf recovery plan. “As we face a biodiversity crisis of global proportions, it is imperative for us to recognize that this isn’t just about wolves,” says Fallon. “The fate of humanity is intertwined with the fate of species and healthy ecosystems.”

NRDC Campaigns for Stronger Energy Efficiency Program Under Biden For NRDC’s energy efficiency team, 2020 ended almost as it began: with yet another lawsuit aimed at stopping the Trump administration from gutting energy efficiency standards in the United States. Although the energy efficiency program at the Department of Energy has been enormously successful since its inception more than 30 years ago—saving U.S. homes and businesses nearly $2 trillion on utility bills while cutting carbon pollution from power plants by a staggering three billion tons— former president Trump and his administration waged a tireless campaign to eviscerate it. “It was one attack after the other, for four long years,” says Joe Vukovich, NRDC energy efficiency advocate, “almost like they were determined to bring back the days of energy-guzzling appliances.”

In December, NRDC and our allies sued the Energy Department for attempting to circumvent longtime energy and water efficiency standards for dishwashers, as the agency also tried to do for clothes washers and dryers. The month prior, we sued the department for failing to update energy efficiency standards

for more than two dozen categories of consumer and commercial appliances, including large energy users like refrigerators and water heaters. Updating the standards as required by law would save U.S. households and businesses at least $22 billion annually and prevent more than 80 million metric tons of climate-wrecking carbon pollution by 2035. Two more lawsuits— one filed in April, the other in October—targeted the Energy Department’s unlawful policy changes that would make it harder for the agency to set rigorous pro-consumer, climate-saving standards in the future. The year began with NRDC and our partners filing suit in February over the department’s refusal to roll

out commonsense energy efficiency standards for nearly every household light bulb sold in the country, in defiance of bipartisan legislation passed by Congress in 2007.

“Energy efficiency standards don’t often get the credit they deserve,” Vukovich says. “But they’re a tremendous workhorse. They’ve quietly cut enormous amounts of carbon pollution while saving Americans billions of dollars, which is especially important for low-income communities, who pay a larger percentage of their income on energy. We should be strength­ ening energy efficiency standards in the U.S., and we look forward to working with the new administration to do just that.”

Energy-saving appliances cut carbon pollution and save money.

States and Cities Make Big Climate Gains

By Kit Kennedy, Senior Director, Climate and Clean Energy Program

Throughout four years of stubborn climate denial in the White House, states and cities from coast to coast rallied to tackle the climate crisis. The result? Today, one in three U.S. residents lives in a state or city that has committed to 100 percent clean electricity.

Every region of the country saw climate progress in 2020. In the West, longtime climate leader California continued to set the pace with new targets: all cars, SUVs, and light trucks must have zero emissions by 2035, and all large trucks must be clean and electric by 2050. Oregon governor Kate Brown issued a sweeping climate executive order, while voters in Nevada and New Mexico approved significant clean-energy ballot initiatives. In Denver, voters approved a measure creating a $40 million fund to support the city’s climate programs, with half of the fund to be invested in low-income communities and communities disproportionately burdened by pollution and climate impacts.

In the Midwest, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive order committing the state to achieving net-zero carbon emissions economy wide by 2050. Ohio voters in Cincinnati and Columbus approved strong renewable energy and clean transportation ballot initiatives. And Illinois entered 2021 poised to pass the groundbreaking Clean Energy Jobs Act. Farther east, the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which aims at cutting carbon pollution from power plants, added two new members, New Jersey and Virginia, with Pennsylvania slated to join as the 12th state this year. New York enacted bold legislation to speed the siting of renewable energy and advanced an ambitious energy efficiency and building electrification plan, while lawmakers in Massachusetts moved toward committing their state to reaching net-zero carbon by 2050.

As the Biden–Harris climate agenda moves forward, states and cities will con­tinue to be vital. States play the primary role in regulating investor-owned utilities and setting their own clean energy policies, while cities have been key drivers in building demand for clean energy and developing innovative climate policies that can be replicated and scaled up to the state and federal levels.

KIT KENNEDY © REBECCA GREESON FOR NRDC; MONARCH BUTTERFLY © PETER MILLER VIA FLICKR; FLOWERS © JOHN SYLVESTER/DESIGN PICS VIA NATURE IN STOCK; WASHER/DRYER © DENNIS SCHROEDER/NREL

N R D C VO I C E S

T O P R AT E D B Y C H A R I T Y N AV I G AT O R . O R G N AT U R A L R E S O U R C E S D E F E N S E C O U N C I L 40 WEST 20TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10011 WWW.NRDC.ORG/NATURESVOICE NATURESVOICE@NRDC.ORG | 212.727.4500

HELP PROTECT FUTURE GENERATIONS

EDITOR IN CHIEF JASON BEST

Make a bequest to NRDC and defend our environment for decades to come.

NRDC.ORG/FUTURE

MANAGING EDITOR LIZ LINKE WRITERS JASON BEST, COURTNEY LINDWALL DIRECTOR OF MEMBERSHIP GINA TRUJILLO

Monarch butterfly