Congress can create millions of jobs and fight climate change by working to conserve at least 30 percent of U.S. lands and ocean by 2030.
Summary of this essay from the Center for American Progress:
Investments to protect 30 percent of U.S. lands and ocean by 2030 can create between 446,900 and 717,000 jobs by protecting clean air, clean water, and wildlife; fighting climate change, and providing safer and more equitable access to the outdoors for every person in America.
Summary of the recommendations:
Protecting more parks and natural areas. Congress should pass the Great American Outdoors Act, which would fully and permanently fund the LWCF at $900 million per year. This annual investment through the LWCF would create between 15,300 and 27,900 jobs per year. [Note: the Senate has already passed the Great American Outdoors Act by an overwhelming margin. The House will take up the bill after the Fourth of July recess. trump has said he will sign it.]
Reforesting America’s lands. Congress should restore the health of at least 6 million acres of public lands per year by investing approximately $4.2 billion per year. Each annual investment of this size would create between 50,400 and 126,000 jobs.
Restoring America’s coasts. By investing $3 billion in shovel-ready restoration projects, Congress could immediately create 45,000 jobs in communities from the Gulf Coast and the Great Lakes to rural Maine and coastal Alaska.
Plugging orphan wells and restoring damaged drilling sites. Congress should invest at least $2 billion to plug dangerous orphan wells on private, state, federal, and tribal lands. This money should be contingent upon governments demonstrating that they have adequate bonding requirements in place for any future oil and gas development. A $2 billion investment would create between 14,000 and 24,000 jobs.
Fixing aging dams and removing unnecessary ones. Congress should create a $1 billion Safe Dams Fund to remove unnecessary and unsafe dams. This investment would create approximately 10,000 to 13,000 jobs.
Cleaning up abandoned mines and restoring abandoned mine lands. Congress should invest $1 billion per year in abandoned mine clean-up. Some money could be recouped by assessing a reclamation fee on ongoing hard-rock mining operations on federal lands. This $1 billion annual investment would create an estimated 31,500 jobs per year.
Helping family farmers, ranchers, and private forest owners save their lands. A letter signed by 79 members of the House recommends that Congress appropriate at least $6 billion to protect and restore private lands, including through increased funding for USDA conservation easement programs.35 Congress should also increase funding for DOI and DOD conservation easement programs by at least $250 million.
Addressing the maintenance backlog on America’s public lands. Fully funding the maintenance needs of U.S. land management agencies would require approximately $10.3 billion in investment and create approximately 133,700 jobs. Congress should pass the Great American Outdoors Act—which would fully cover the maintenance needs of the National Park Service and partially fund the maintenance needs of other land management agencies—and then determine what additional immediate maintenance investments are warranted. [See note above about the Great American Outdoors Act.]
