Last November, a majority of Americans rejected Trump’s leadership, and in January of this year, Joe Biden came into the Oval Office with an entirely different attitude. Less than 24 hours after being sworn in as President, Biden took action to have the U.S. rejoin the Paris climate accord. Since then, he has continued to halt or reverse more of his predecessor’s climate change-related rollbacks.
Beyond that, Biden’s Executive Order 14008 articulates a suite of policies for tackling the climate crisis, which he puts at the center of America’s national security and foreign policy. In order to deploy a government-wide approach to climate change issues, Biden has established a new National Climate Task Force that includes climate policy experts as well as all the members of his Cabinet. Also in E.O. 14008, the President sets his intention to have the United States achieve the 30x30 objectives.
When Biden took office, about 12 percent of U.S. land and 23% of U.S. oceans already had protected status, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. But under a new America the Beautiful Initiative, jointly developed by the U.S. Departments of the Interior, Commerce and Agriculture, along with the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Biden administration hopes to protect over 720 million acres of America’s lands and waterways. Notably, this plan looks not only to conserve more public lands and waters, but also to enlist voluntary and locally led conservation and restoration efforts. This will include supporting Tribe-led conservation and restoration priorities, and incentivizing the voluntary efforts of farmers, ranchers, forest owners, and other private enterprises.
This approach is in keeping with Biden’s belief that, as he said throughout his campaign and repeated again on Inauguration Day, “There isn’t anything we can’t do if we do it together… America’s story depends not on any one of us, not on some of us, but on all of us, on ‘we the people.’”
Indeed, the administration made a point of reaching out to a wide array of stakeholders as it developed its America the Beautiful Initiative, consulting with organizations like the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Corn Growers Association, and Trout Unlimited, which later issued statements in support of the plan.
The president of the National Corn Growers Association, Mark Linder, acknowledged the feds’ outreach to the NCGA, saying that his organization “has long advocated that voluntary conservation efforts are the best ways to deliver sustainable results on the farm. And we conveyed that to the Administration in a conversation with them about their 30x30 initiative last month. We're glad they listened….”