Bloomberg Campaign Press Release - Mike Unveils Comprehensive Plan to Restore and Protect U.S. Public Lands and National Parks

Mike will reverse Trump's assault on public lands starting on Day 1 and triple federal budgets to protect twice the amount of U.S. lands and waters by 2030

Plan guarantees every American can access national parks and supports local economies

Read Mike's full policy here

NEW YORK — Today, Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg released his plan to restore, respect, and protect our country's national parks, national monuments, and the ocean which are under heavy attack from President Trump. His administration has carried out the greatest reduction of protected public lands in history — threatening the future of our country's wildlife and environment, and the communities that depend on them. As president, Mike will reverse President Trump's attacks on our lands, wildlife, and waters on his first day in office; set ambitious new goals to conserve and protect ecosystems across the U.S.; and ensure all Americans can access and benefit from national parks and public lands.

Mike's public lands policy is part of his comprehensive plan to combat the climate crisis. To best protect communities, wildlife, and ecosystems against the worst impacts of the climate crisis, scientists call for protecting 30% of the Earth's land and oceans no later than 2030. Mike's plan will ensure that the U.S. does its part, more than doubling the current amount of lands and waters protected in the U.S. from the current 12% to 30% by 2030. Mike will also triple federal funding for conservation, management, and restoration of public lands, with a focus on increasing resilience to climate change.

"Our public lands are a precious public resource that we must conserve and restore. President Trump has done just the opposite, directing an unprecedented assault that has stripped them of vital protections. We can't stand for it — and I won't," said Mike Bloomberg. "As president, I'll act quickly to roll back Trump's disastrous policies, double the amount of public land and water covered by environmental protections, and triple our funding for conservation and restoration. We have to take action to fight the climate crisis, and protecting public lands will be a crucial part of that work."

As evident in Mike's climate record as a mayor and philanthropist, and his presidential climate plans, Mike knows that tackling the climate crisis requires transitioning off of fossil fuels. He will ramp up clean energy production on lands that have already been developed – while protecting wildlife. He will accelerate offshore wind production and reform energy management to make public lands carbon-neutral, starting with a moratorium on new oil and gas leases to prevent drilling. Mike will also partner with Native American tribes to respect their sovereignty and the rights that go with their relationship to ancestral lands, ensuring access for traditional activities and economic opportunity.

National parks are some of the country's largest recreational attractions and a key economic driver for both urban and rural communities. Half of Americans say they've visited a national park in the last two years. Mike's plan will bolster economic support for urban and rural communities near national parks. He will increase local hiring and contracts for small businesses, and leverage federal funds to address negative impacts of tourism such as local transportation infrastructure and housing prices. He will also make America's parks and public lands more accessible to diverse communities through new "Transit-to-Trail" programs, offering federal support for public transportation connecting cities and public lands and tripling education and interpretation budgets.

The U.S. Department of Interior is responsible for more than two billion acres of public lands and oceans, with management divided among the Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Fish and Wildlife Service. The U.S. Forest Service manages another 191 million acres under the supervision of the Department of Agriculture. Mike will use his management experience to break down silos across government agencies, encourage collaboration with stakeholders, and streamline cooperation amongst agencies tasked with the protection of our natural resources.

Mike's initiatives are in stark contrast to President Trump's flagrant refusal to protect our natural resources. Trump's Administration has repealed protections for land, water, and endangered species and turned over public lands for oil and gas drilling, threatening iconic American landscapes like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Tongass National Forest, Bears Ears National Monument, Boundary Waters of Minnesota, and others.

Mike's Plan to Restore, Respect, and Protect the American Outdoors

1. Reverse Trump's assault on national parks, public lands and waters. The Trump administration is implementing an agenda that stands to cause unprecedented damage to public lands. Mike will put a stop to these assaults and restore protections. He will:

• Reverse Trump rollbacks of environmental rules across the board. Mike will direct agencies to stop proceeding with anti-environmental rulemakings and to stop defending in court those that have already been finalized.
• Reinstate monument protections for Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears. Mike will establish clear processes and standards, including local consultation and collaboration, for managing reinstated monuments and designating future ones.
• Enact a moratorium on new leases for fossil fuel extraction on public lands and in offshore waters. Mike will put a stop to the millions of acres of public lands Trump has offered for oil and gas production, including proposing to open up waters off the coast of California, along the Eastern Seaboard and in the Arctic Ocean to new drilling.
• Reinstate methane pollution limits for oil and gas production on public lands. Trump is working to repeal restrictions on dangerously potent methane emissions from oil and gas production on public lands. Mike will reinstate and put in place stronger rules than Trump is repealing.

2. Set new goals to better protect, restore and manage public lands, waters, oceans and parks. Healthy ecosystems are critical for wildlife and also for addressing climate change. Healthy landscapes remove carbon from the atmosphere and forests and wetlands can mitigate floods and drought. The Forest Service estimates that 65-82 million acres need restoration, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has millions more. As president, Mike will set goals to restore and protect our lands and oceans, and put in place management plans to achieve them. He will:

• Set a target of conserving 30% of U.S. lands and waters, including the ocean by 2030. Mike will protect and restore ecosystems, and manage lands for increased natural climate change resilience and carbon sequestration. He will establish a scientific commission to identify the ecosystems that require protection or restoration and invite the public to help make recommendations.
• Increase funding for land conservation and management. Mike will triple the current Land and Water Conservation Fund spending to $1.5 billion per year and increase forest restoration funding to $5 billion per year. He will also explore innovative funding for land management and restoration, such as forest resilience bonds that engage private sector funding.
• Reform energy and mineral management to make public lands carbon neutral. Mike will make public lands carbon neutral by setting a goal of 50 gigawatts of clean energy capacity on public lands, half of it offshore wind, and managing lands to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. He will also reform leasing processes and payments, and ensure that fossil fuel companies pay royalties and lease rates at least as high as what states and the private sector charge, plus sufficient payment to cover environmental and climate damages.

3. Ensure all Americans can access, benefit from, and enjoy parks and public lands. All Americans have a stake in our public lands and Native American tribes have a relationship to these lands going back to time immemorial. They are a critical resource for education and they are a source of economic support for rural communities. Mike will improve management of our public lands to benefit all Americans. He will:

• Respect Native Americans' relationship to ancestral lands, treaty rights, and sovereignty. Tribes should be consulted in the management of public lands to which they have treaty rights or other cultural and historical relationships. Mike will engage in full and meaningful consultation with tribes on federal land management by inviting tribes to identify lands that need management changes and work with them to explore co-management and economic opportunities.
• Increase the use of national parks by diverse constituencies. Mike will help increase Americans' access to and use of national parks. He will make it easier for people to access opportunities on public lands using public transportation, and triple interpretive and education budgets to update programming and improve the visitor experience.
• Partner with cities, states, and land trusts to expand and improve parks and increase access. Mike will work with cities and states to consider city, state, and national parks as a network, and triple funding for state and city parks under the Land and Water Conservation Fund to better connect management among national, state and city lands.
• Ensure that national monuments and national parks tell the full story of American history. Mike will appoint a commission of historians to review the national monuments and historical and cultural parks to identify gaps in the historical narrative and establish a national competition inviting the public to nominate new parks and monuments, prioritizing proposals that bring communities together and designate new parks and monuments accordingly.
• Support local economies in gateway communities, including local tribal economies. Mike will maximize economic benefits to local communities by connecting local residents to jobs and local small businesses to contracts. He will also use federal funds to address negative impacts of tourism such as traffic congestion and housing prices.
• Support outdoor recreation and other sustainable uses. Mike will ensure that public lands can be used in sustainable ways and increase federal funding to address the $19.7 billion maintenance backlogs at the Park service and other lands agencies within 10 years.

4. Break down silos between federal agencies, encourage collaboration with stakeholders, and streamline bureaucracy. Land management is divided among multiple agencies, often with adjoining lands, and can be controversial. Public lands are in the backyards of diverse communities, yet they belong to everyone, and different stakeholders have varied views on how they should be managed. Mike will reform management to address these challenges, and prioritize on-the-ground collaboration. He will:

• Convene a National Lands sub-cabinet to coordinate federal land management. The White House will regularly convene the Park Service, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Fish and Wildlife Service to coordinate management strategies.
• Organize and fund local collaborative structures involving tribes, state and local communities, and conservation and user groups, to help develop evidence-based, cross-agency management plans. Mike will introduce collaborative approaches involving stakeholders with diverse viewpoints to support local cooperation to manage public lands.

Mike's approach to restoring, respecting, and protecting the country's public lands, parks, and the ocean is based on his record as mayor of New York City and as one of the world's leading environmentalists. In City Hall, Mike's administration converted 229 schoolyards to playgrounds and developed more than 300 acres of new parkland in just six years. This allowed 76% of New Yorkers to live within a 10-minute walk to public greenspace. As mayor, Mike led efforts to clean up vacant and blighted brownfield sites, protect the city's water supply, and leverage public and private investment in conservation and management. Mike forged a notable partnership between the City and the National Park Service for co-management at Jamaica Bay, including plans for ecosystem restoration and research on increasing resilience. Mike's foundation has supported one of the nation's largest efforts to block offshore drilling and has invested in data-driven efforts to protect oceans and marine ecosystems, both by reducing overfishing and destructive fishing practices, and by preserving coral reefs.

In contrast, President Trump has repealed long-standing protections of wetlands, grasslands, and forests.

• Trump has not appointed a Director of Bureau of Lands Management, leaving the position empty for his entire presidency, and keeping in place an acting director who has advocated selling off public lands.
• President Trump initiated the largest reduction of protected land in U.S. history by reducing two million acres of federal lands in Utah.
• The Trump administration restructured a land buy-back program, reducing the number of tribes able to use the program to reacquire home lands. Trump's advisors wanted to privatize tribal lands to increase oil drilling.
• After President Obama consulted with stakeholders to develop a plan to protect the pristine Bears Ears area, sacred to multiple Native American tribes, as a national monument, President Trump stripped the protections, as well as those for the iconic Grand Staircase-Escalante monument.
• Trump has opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling, tried to remove safeguards against oil spills put in place after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, rolled back the Endangered Species Act, and is moving to roll back the National Environmental Policy Act.
• The Trump Administration transferred more than 500 acres of Department of Interior controlled public lands to the Pentagon for the construction of the border wall.
• Trump diverted national park funds to pay for a military parade.
• The Trump administration tried to raise entrance fees to national parks.
• The Trump administration proposed introducing protest fees at the National Mall.
• Trump's 2020 budget proposed slashing the land and water conservation fund by 95%.
• The Trump administration proposed repealing an Obama-era moratorium on coal mining on public lands.
• The Trump administration proposed permitting mining and energy drilling on nearly a million acres of land in southern Utah and to allow fracking and drilling on 1.2 million acres of public lands in California.
• The Trump administration worked to ease restrictions on oil and natural gas drilling, mining, and other efforts that the Obama administration put in place to help protect the endangered Greater Sage Grouse.
• Trump's Interior Department wanted to allow oil and gas exploration across the entire Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
• The Trump Administration in 2018 offered more than 12.8 million acres of federally controlled oil and gas parcels for lease, three times more offers than those made during President Obama's second term.
• President Trump's interior secretary announced the repeal of a rule increasing the amount that fossil fuel companies must pay to drill on federal land.

ADDITIONAL QUOTES:

Theodore Roosevelt IV, a conservationist and a member of the Governing Council of The Wilderness Society: "At a critical juncture for our nation, President Theodore Roosevelt made tough decisions to protect and conserve our nation's land and natural resources. He achieved this by engaging sportsmen, writers, and political leaders and by negotiating a course between the idealism of some and the pragmatism of others. He got it done when the nation most needed knowledge and vision. Unfortunately, President Trump has neither. Mike Bloomberg is my choice for our next president because he has the clarity, the resolve, and the ability to face our new challenges on this front. In light of climate upheavals, we must ensure the optimum health and resilience of all of our ecosystems, as well as the economic health of our rural communities who depend upon and care for these resources. Mike can get it done with and for all of us."

Mayor of Sante Fe, New Mexico Alan Webber: "In Santa Fe we are surrounded by some of the most beautiful lands in America. People love to use them and we need to help more people experience them. Mike's plan will help Americans visit these very special public spaces. He'll federally finance transit connections to them, and he will increase park staff. This will be informed by local communities who best know what we need. As access and transit increase, jobs will follow. Mike will make it easier for communities to plan for this and execute on those plans. Mike may be from New York City, but he understands that people need access to open, non-urban space. As mayor, he added 850 acres of park land to his city and now all New Yorkers live within a 10 minute walk of a park. Mike will work with representatives from all parties to make sure these life-enhancing, job-creating, changes are made. Mike will get it done."

Former New York City Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe: "Mike Bloomberg has been a global leader on fighting climate change and protecting our environment for several decades. Based on his significant local, national, and global accomplishments, he has developed a bold and ambitious plan to conserve 30% of U.S. lands and waters, including oceans, by 2030. He wants to protect and restore these lands while using our natural resources to sequester carbon and help strengthen our resilience to climate change. As mayor, Mike created an innovative partnership between New York City and the National Park Service to co-manage the 20,000 acres of National and NYC parks in Jamaica Bay, which is helping restore this crucial and endangered ecosystem. As the best mayor for parks in New York City's history, he also increased the amount of parks and recreational spaces in the city, making it possible for the first time for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to walk to a park in ten minutes or less. I'm beyond excited about what Mike will do for our natural parks and public lands when he gets to the White House."

Sam Waterston, award winning actor and environmentalist: "I believe that protecting our parks and public lands is one of the most important things we can do to ensure that the legacy of our beautiful country is passed on to future generations. The current administration is attacking our heritage, repealing protections for our national monuments, and handing our land over to oil, gas, and mineral interests. This is America's land and this assault on it needs to stop. Mike Bloomberg will protect and restore our public lands so that all Americans can use them. So our air is clean, our water is safe to drink, and we can push back against climate change. Mike has always seen the value in protecting green spaces. As mayor, he added 850 acres of park to New York City. He also understands how important clean air is. He reduced New York's carbon footprint by 13 percent during his mayoralty, and made the air there the cleanest it has been in 50 years. Mike believes in science and data and he will make sure our public lands are used to their maximum value — for all of us, not just special interests. Mike will get the job done."

Laura Daniel Davis, Chief of Policy and Advocacy for the National Wildlife Federation Action Fund and former chief of staff to Interior Secretaries Sally Jewell and Ken Salazar: "America's public lands provide essential wildlife habitat, world-class recreational experiences, abundant clean water, and natural climate solutions from carbon sequestration to community resilience. It's welcome news that candidates like Mayor Bloomberg are championing our public lands and proposing comprehensive solutions to conserve and restore our national treasures."

Peter Metcalf, Founder and former CEO of Black Diamond Equipment, Vice Chairman of the Conservation Lands Foundation, and Board Member of the Outdoor Industry's Conservation Alliance: "Utah is blessed to have some of the most diverse, spectacular and iconic landscapes in America, and we who live here think of ourselves as their stewards. By gutting environmental protections, the Trump administration is endangering our people, our landscapes and our heritage. I support Mike Bloomberg for president because he has made it clear that he wants policies that protect people, not special interests. Mike will reverse Trump's rollbacks of federal protections for our lands, clean air and water, and will reinstate protections for special places like the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments. "

John Plonski, Former Chief Operating Officer of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources: "Our revered public lands have been sorely neglected for years and have fallen into a state of disrepair. Climate change is endangering environmental and natural resources in national parks, forests and tribal lands, and threatening plant and animal species across the country. Mike Bloomberg's plan to protect and restore America's public lands, parks, and oceans approaches the complex challenges of conservation, tourism, and industry intelligently and carefully. It reflects appreciation for our nation's natural lands and historic heritage, while showing respect for the stewards of these magnificent lands. What really sets Mike's plan apart from others is its bias toward action and detailed strategies to invest in and set much-needed reform in motion. That's why I'm endorsing this plan, because I know Mike Bloomberg will get it done."

Ralph Becker, Former Mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah: "I began my career in the National Park Service and know first-hand the bounty of our public lands. It is an amazing thing to live in Salt Lake City and have such extraordinary access to these spectacular natural and cultural landscapes. Mike's plan will help more people utilize these places. He'll connect urban communities to nature by piloting transit and better transportation connections to these natural areas. He will also increase park staffing and restore deteriorating infrastructure. Best of all — Mike believes in conservation. He will set a goal of conserving or protecting 30 percent of the country's lands and waters, setting up a collaborative process with scientists and the public to identify places that need better protection. Mike is a man who cares about our access to nature and wild places. He helped New Yorkers connect with the outdoors by adding 850 acres of parkland and people's lives were made richer. We have a rich national heritage and we need dollars and support from Washington to protect it."

Peter Corroon, Former Mayor of Salt Lake County: "Our public lands need stewardship. They are a vast inheritance. Mike Bloomberg understands the importance of protecting public lands and making sure that all Americans have access to them for recreation. I appreciate that Mike will reverse Trump's rollbacks and reinstate protections for places like Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante and he'll put a moratorium on oil and gas exploration that affect our public lands. Utahns utilize our public lands. Most of us visit them every year, and often multiple times. I know I do. We must make sure that access remains and that we preserve it for generations to come. Mike will get the job done. He always does.

Robert "Birdlegs" Caughlan, former President of the Surfrider Foundation: "The one common bond that all surfers share is that we all fall in love with the ocean. Plastics, acidification, offshore drilling, sea level rise, the gyres, coral bleaching, and overfishing are all threatening the health of our beloved oceans. Ocean lovers need a president who understands the importance of acting swiftly to protect our waters from the threats of climate change and pollution. That's why I am supporting Mike Bloomberg. Mike has the best proven track record of actually getting things done to protect our oceans; his philanthropy has supported research on the resilience and protection of coral reefs to climate change. As president, Mike will set concrete targets for conserving our oceans and support research into how to protect and restore endangered ecosystems."

Jane Rudolph, former chief of staff to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation: "Our public parks are spectacular places that should be enjoyed by as many people as possible. Part of the challenge is helping people get from urban areas into parks and green spaces nearby. Mike Bloomberg will make sure the federal government partners with cities, states, and land trusts to improve parks of all kinds, piloting "transit to trails" initiatives to make it easier for people to reach the outdoors using public transportation. In Arlington, Virginia, 98 percent of our residents live within a 10 minute walk to a park. It makes a big difference when parks are accessible. People use them. And, they use them in different ways."