Oil and Gas Report

Policy Solutions

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  Solution #1: Improve the lease-planning process to ensure that national park landscapes are unharmed by oil and gas development and that the National Park Service has a prominent, official role in all leasing decisions that affect parks

  This report clearly demonstrates the need for an oil and gas leasing process that ensures park resources, visitor experience and local park economies are considered when leasing decisions are made. NPCA believes that the National Park Service should be a formal, collaborating partner on all BLM leasing decisions that affect park landscapes and that park landscapes should be a priority for protection in all BLM planning processes. Additionally, NPCA is advocating for the BLM to reinstate the stakeholder-driven, landscape-level planning that considers park resources, communities and oil and gas development together.        

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  Solution #2: Pass federal legislation that protects specific park-adjacent landscapes

  National parks protect our country’s cultural legacy, wildlife habitats, clean air and clean water. To protect these resources, NPCA is working to enhance and increase safeguards for park-adjacent federal lands, ensuring these lands are put off-limits from extractive activities.  

   

  One example of proactive legislation that NPCA is working to advance is the Chaco Cultural Heritage Protection Act. This bill would withdraw federal lands around the park from new oil and gas development to ensure protection of the cultural and tribal resources and visitor experience. 

   

  Other policy solutions include pursuing new wilderness designations or park boundary adjustments, which would ensure increased protections for the park landscapes and increased opportunities for other activities that do not permanently damage our public lands.  

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  Solution #3: Curtail fossil fuel extraction to mitigate effects of climate change

  National parks are ground zero for some of the biggest impacts of climate change: Glaciers are melting, air quality is deteriorating, wildlife migration patterns are changing and plants are stressed by rising temperatures. Fossil fuel extraction is a major contributor to climate pollution. As part of a comprehensive plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect our national parks, we must curtail or eliminate extraction of fossil fuels on public lands. Such policies could include increasing the amount of conservation lands protected by the United States, implementing climate change mitigation strategies within the land management agencies, prioritizing nonfossil renewable energy development and limiting the number of lease sales and available acreage for lease. 

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  Solution #4: Defend and enhance keystone conservation protections

  National parks are not islands of conservation. They depend on healthy ecological connections to the lands and waters that surround them. Air, water and wildlife not only move freely in and out of parks, they also provide invaluable resources for communities and the larger park landscape. If we fail to protect these resources at the landscape scale, both parks and communities suffer the consequences. The Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act are all crucial to the protection of America’s national parks, particularly in areas with immense oil and gas development. Attempts to roll back conservation laws, regulations and policies are direct threats to all parks, especially those that are already vulnerable because of oil and gas drilling.