Advancing a ‘Climate Plan for Public Lands’ Through Collaborative Advocacy

Abstract

Public land management is an often overlooked but vital part of efforts to solve the climate crisis. Changes in public land management policy could dramatically shift incentives for production of both fossil fuels and renewable energy, increase carbon sequestration and ecosystem resilience, and support or hinder a just transition for communities with local economies historically dependent on nonrenewable resource extraction. The People, Public Lands, and Climate Collaborative (PPLCC) is an informal network of nonprofit organizations that was formed in 2020 to ensure that public lands are part of a just and equitable climate solution. This practicum was undertaken to provide capacity to further PPLCC goals by advocating for Congressional action. Through an iterative process, several tools were developed to identify, analyze, and compare the relative merits of federal legislative proposals that could help achieve PPLCC priorities. These tools included a legislative tracker, a rubric for analyzing and comparing legislation, and a scorecard to visually demonstrate these comparisons. This report details the development of these tools and their implementation by the PPLCC. It also contains a case study to be used by students studying environmental policy to better understand the benefits, challenges, and relevant considerations for working in a collaborative with members that represent a variety of organizational missions, strategies, and structures.