Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Interior Takes Up Climate Battle

By Margaret Kriz Hobson  

David Hayes

Deputy Interior Secretary

With U.S. climate legislation and an international climate agreement both deferred to 2010, the Obama administration is unilaterally pursuing (subscription) several fronts in the battle against global warming. One agency playing a quiet but significant role in this effort is the Department of the Interior, which under Secretary Ken Salazar is initiating renewable energy projects on public lands, putting more acres of land under federal protection, and working with communities to assess local impacts of climate change.

Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes spoke to National Journal last month about the agency's new initiatives, the effects of climate on endangered species, and whether the administration is waging a "war on the West." Edited excerpts follow.

NJ: What's the Interior Department up to on climate change?

Hayes: Climate change is hugely important to the Interior Department for, I'd say, three very different types of reasons. One is that we actually have the opportunity to be the leader for the federal government in standing up more renewable energy. We are looking to have by the end of next year under construction between 500 and 900 megawatts of new renewable energy on our public lands. That's the equivalent of 15 to 30 coal-fired power plants. We are fast-tracking projects in the Southwest.... We are fast-tracking wind projects; we are pushing very hard in cooperation with governors on the East Coast for offshore wind....

The second area is climate impact. We are the primary stewards of the nation's resources. We directly manage 20 percent of the landmass.... We have wildlife responsibilities -- migratory birds, the Endangered Species Act -- that affect virtually all of our lands; and we have huge water responsibilities. The Interior Department is the largest wholesaler of water in the world -- the Bureau of Reclamation. Our water irrigates one out of every five farmers' fields. More than 30 million Americans rely on our water for drinking water. And we are seeing climate impacts on wildlife, on water, on habitat. It's affecting our fire seasons. It's affecting our responsibilities for migratory birds. It's affecting our wildlife responsibilities....

The third area ... is the Interior Department's role in biological sequestration, and to some extent in geological sequestration as well. The 2007 Energy Act tasked the United States Geological Survey, our science agency, with developing methodology on geological sequestration to help identify geological formations that were sound for carbon capture and storage. We're working with DOE on that.

More interesting to me is that it also asked us to do an inventory of biological sequestration in the United States.

NJ: What is biological sequestration?

Hayes: That means forests, range lands, wetlands -- how much carbon are our natural landscapes drinking in every day?... It's the good news part of climate change.... People don't realize that the carbon cycle includes our natural systems drinking in carbon emissions. It's estimated that today and every day, fully a third of our industrial emissions are being offset by our forest and range lands. And this analysis we're doing will quantify that and will also show how much additional mitigation we can get by restoring some of our natural landscapes and increasing the amount of carbon they absorb.

NJ: Can you give me an example?

Hayes: Like restoring wetlands [would be] a huge net carbon positive... One of the problems in the [California] Bay Delta is that there are these islands that have been formed by the tributaries that all come together there from the Sacramento River, the San Joaquin River. Traditionally that area was a big wetlands. Over time, levees were put up around the islands, and what had been very wet, dried out and subsided. And most of those islands now, the land is as much as 25 feet below the water.... And it's the biggest source of carbon in California -- the Delta, the continued release of this carbon that had been stored in these wetlands. So the USGS has a project, we're going back to restore some of those wetlands, to drink the carbon back in and to build up the subsided land.

NJ: Will you be looking at climate change with respect to land acquisition and land management plans?

Hayes: Absolutely.

NJ: How?

Hayes: We are requiring the bureaus in all their long-range planning to take into account climate impacts. So, the Bureau of Reclamation, in terms of water planning -- it's fairly obvious that they need to do that. But also our land management agencies -- our fire risks are going higher, the season is longer, the fires are more intense.... The factors go on and on that are affecting management decisions. And your point is well taken. Acquisitions strategies, absolutely -- if we're finding, as we are, that migration corridors are changing, then we may need to acquire more land.

NJ: What about the whole concern about multiple use? Republicans on Capitol Hill are afraid that climate change will be the main issue, instead of multiple use -- and of course they want to make sure that includes extraction. You could see them starting to gin up the whole "war on the West" thing again.

Hayes: I think it's a false fight here. The fact is that many of the traditional constituencies, hunters and anglers, are the ones who are seeing these changes the most and are most concerned about it -- and communities threatened by larger and more intense wildfires. This is not some sort of abstract pointy-headed intellectual exercise. Communities are seeing the impacts and are concerned. Those examples of impacts on hunting and fishing, of wildfire impacts -- a third example that many people are feeling is impacts on water availability for agriculture, for growth in cities. So these are realities that we have to deal with because they hit core needs of the American people.

NJ: How about the Endangered Species Act? Do you consider climate in terms of the ESA issue?

Hayes: There's no question that some species are being affected by climate change impacts. The Bush administration confirmed that with polar bears, and the science is very compelling. Their habitat is disappearing, with the sea ice going out so early. And we have the American pika -- a little mammal that lives at high altitudes. As the Intermountain West warms, it's moving up, and running out of room.

When it comes to ESA, we basically look at numbers of individuals and habitat, and regardless of why a species may be in trouble, the law requires us to make decisions that yes, a species are in trouble, and we have to list them and take certain actions. So to some extent climate change may be a factor, but so also may be population growth destroying habitat, or whatever. It's just another factor.

NJ: Could this impact whether we allow oil and gas extraction, coal extraction?

Hayes: I don't think so, frankly.

NJ: Those are questions people ask. They say, well, think about it -- burning coal creates climate impacts.

Hayes: I don't think so. I testified at my confirmation hearing, and Ken Salazar has repeated this: The ESA is not the tool to deal with the causes of climate change. I don't think, we don't think, that if you have a problem with polar bears, as we do, that the ESA solution is to limit coal-fired power plant emissions. This is a global problem. The answer there is comprehensive climate change legislation.