'How Exactly Are You Defining Conservation?': Deb Fischer Grills Deb Haaland In Senate Hearing

6 months ago

At a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE) questioned Interior Sec. Deb Haaland about the America the Beautiful Initiative.

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Transcript

00:00 parks. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Senator Peters. Senator Fischer.

00:05 Thank you Senator Murkowski. Welcome Secretary, nice to see you again. Last

00:11 year I discussed with you that Nebraska is a private property state. 97% of

00:16 Nebraska's land is privately owned. I continue to hear great concern about the

00:22 administration's America the Beautiful initiative or the 30 by 30 proposal. As a

00:28 reminder, 70 counties in my state of Nebraska have issued resolutions of

00:34 disapproval about the 30 by 30 initiative. Nebraskans remain concerned

00:40 that this effort is an attempt at a land grab and a failure of the

00:45 administration to recognize that private landowners often are much better at

00:50 managing land than the federal government. I'd like to start by

00:54 following up on a question I asked last year. In regards to the 30 by 30

01:00 initiative, how exactly are you defining conservation? Thank you very much Senator.

01:07 With respect to the America the Beautiful initiative, as you know it's a

01:15 voluntary locally led partnership driven conservation and restoration effort

01:19 across the country. With respect to the definition of conserved land, we continue

01:27 to work toward a flexible inclusive definition given the many types of

01:31 conservation that exist on federal, state, and private land. I think one of the

01:36 operative words is voluntary. Folks can volunteer to include their lands in

01:43 conservation or the definition of conservation or they don't have to.

01:48 How do you reconcile stating that this is being a locally led voluntary effort

01:54 yet in 2023 America the Beautiful initiative you cite five new national

02:01 monument designations, restoration of protections to various federal lands, and

02:07 several mineral withdrawals as key progress. How is that key progress

02:15 when I don't believe that those actions sound at all like they're locally led or

02:20 or voluntary efforts? In fact many of those are Senator. We could take... Can you

02:26 give me an example? Sure. The Ivequa May National Monument, that was a

02:32 conservation effort that was worked on by the tribes of Nevada for almost

02:38 decades and it's their ancestral homeland. When tribes come to us and

02:46 ask us to help them to conserve a certain portion of land that they care

02:52 deeply about, we listen. It's a transparent process. We open up a public

02:59 comment period. There's a lot of people that get to weigh in on that issue. Does the

03:03 land remain under the control of the tribe or is it put into a

03:12 national monument designation? I can see the federal government

03:18 trying to work with landowners on different conservation practices. I

03:23 probably define that different than you. But when the tribe you said has worked

03:29 for decades on this, do they still then maintain control and does it

03:35 fit into the bucket that the administration's trying to have for the

03:39 30 by 30? So staying with the example of Ivequa May that I gave you, it's a

03:46 BLM managed land. However, the tribes have... We also enter into co-stewardship

03:55 agreements with tribes. So does that fit in the 30 by 30? Is that part of

04:00 the program since it's been happening for decades? So the 30 by 30 is an

04:05 initiative. It's not a specific program. It's an initiative of the administration.

04:10 It's not a specific program with a line item in our budget,

04:17 but we work toward conserving land under that umbrella. But yes,

04:26 we would count that land. If we were counting land, sure, that

04:33 would be under a conservation effort and the tribes would have a say in it. If I

04:39 could move on just quickly here. In your budget, you request 13 million dollars

04:44 for acquisition of zero emission vehicles. And electric vehicles we know

04:48 are costlier. They have a host of issues, including increasing our nation's

04:52 reliance on foreign controlled critical minerals. Secretary, thinking about the

04:58 vast number of priorities across your agency, including improving permitting

05:02 and ESA consultations as we discussed, do you really believe this is the right

05:09 time to be prioritizing the purchase of more expensive and probably less

05:14 practical electric electrical vehicles for the department? And do you find it

05:19 troublesome that the department has widely fought to restrict the

05:24 development of critical minerals and mining domestically while also pushing

05:29 for vehicles that are currently heavily dependent on foreign supply chains for

05:35 these? And I would emphasize in areas of the world like Congo, where we

05:41 have children mining cobalt, which then we can sit back and say, "Oh, but

05:49 we don't allow that." But yet you want vehicles that are dependent upon it.

05:55 Senator, since President Biden has taken the oath of office in January of 2021, we

06:03 have approved, moved through five critical mineral mine permits, and

06:09 those mines are moving forward now. We started the interagency work

06:18 group on mining reform. It's a 150 year old law. We felt there's a lot of new

06:22 technology. We're trying to streamline some of these efforts. And so the report

06:29 has come out, and we're working to follow the recommendations of the report.

06:33 That we think will help us to move forward in a quicker fashion.

06:36 Additionally, under President Biden's leadership, 40 mining or mine

06:44 modification permits have also been approved. So we are, the career staff at

06:51 Interior is working hard to push to move this process through. And we also believe

06:58 very strongly that we do need a supply chain of critical minerals if we wish to

07:03 move our country toward the clean energy. Do you think it's practical to request that

07:10 $13 million in your budget for those vehicles? Senator Fischer asks a great

07:15 question, but the chairman reminded...

'How Exactly Are You Defining Conservation?': Deb Fischer Grills Deb Haaland In Senate Hearing

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