What Comes After the Wilderness Act?
The Wilderness Act protects 112 million acres of land across the United States from the ravages of industrial development. But for the Indigenous Nations, bands, and tribes that harvested from, cared for, or otherwise managed these so-called “wilderness areas” before they were given this designation by the federal government, the Wilderness Act can feel like yet another instrument of settler-colonial dispossession—a means of enforcing settler law on stolen land. Not only is the legislation’s vision for a landscape “untrammeled by man” built on the racist and genocidal fantasy of terra nullius, but, codified in law, it outlaws the very practices of cultivation and care that nurtured the “wilderness” for untold generations before settler-colonialism took hold.
What’s wrong with the Wilderness Act, and what would it mean to rewrite it today? How might a revised Wilderness Act serve the movement for land rematriation? And how might it guard itself against the libertarian right, which is prepared to exploit any loophole in the law?
Bringing together historians, legal experts, and impacted community members, this Zoom roundtable conversation asks how we should understand the Wilderness Act on its 60th anniversary—a moment both of Indigenous resurgence and a rising far right.
Speakers- Rosalyn LaPier (Blackfeet/Métis) is an award winning writer, ethnobotanist, environmental activist and Professor of History at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She/they work within Indigenous communities to revitalize Indigenous & traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), to address environmental justice & the climate crisis, and to strengthen public policy for Indigenous languages. The author of Invisible Reality: Storytellers, Storytakers and the Supernatural World of the Blackfeet (2017), she/they are a 2023-2025 Red Natural History Fellow. Rosalyn is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana and Métis.
- Heather Whiteman Runs Him (Apsaalooke/Crow) is the Director of the Tribal Justice Clinic and Associate Clinical Professor at University of Arizona Rogers College of Law. Heather served as Council of Record in Arizona v. Navajo Nation and Herrera v. Wyoming for amici Tribal Nations in support of Tribal interests before the United States Supreme Court. She has worked on cases in many venues to protect Tribal relationships to lands and waters. She teaches courses on Tribal Water Law and Tribal Courts and Tribal Law.
- Christen Falcon (Amskapi Piikani/Blackfeet) is a co-owner of a Blackfeet ecotourism transportation business ‘Backpacker’s Ferry’ located on the east side of Glacier National Park. She is a community engagement research specialist working in community wellness development utilizing Blackfeet methodologies and TEK traditional ecological knowledge through the Blackfeet non-profit Piikani Lodge Health Institute.
- Karl Jacoby is Allan Nevins Professor of American History at Columbia University. He has devoted his career to understanding how the making of the United States intertwined with the unmaking of a variety of other societies—from Native American nations to the communities of northern Mexico—and the ecologies upon which they rested. His books include Crimes Against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves and the Hidden History of American Conservation (2003), Shadows at Dawn: A Borderlands Massacre and the Violence of History (2008), and The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire (2016).
Hearing on Indian Tribe Water, Mineral Rights, Buffalo, Forest Legislation
- S. 4444, Crow Revenue Act, to take certain mineral interests into trust for the benefit of the Crow Tribe of Montana
- S. 4633, Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act of 2024
- S. 4643, Zuni Indian Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act of 2024
- S. 4705, Yavapai Apache Nation Water Rights Settlement Act
- S. 4998, Navajo Nation Rio San José Stream System Water Rights Settlement Act of 2024
- S. 465, BADGES for Native Communities Act, to require Federal law enforcement agencies to report on cases of missing or murdered Indians
- S. 2908, Indian Buffalo Management Act, to assist Tribal governments in the management of buffalo and buffalo habitat and the reestablishment of buffalo on Indian land
- S. 4370, Tribal Forest Protection Act Amendments Act of 2024
Nominations of Carl Bentzel for Federal Maritime Commission, Thomas Chapman for NTSB, Lanhee Chen for Amtrak
U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, will convene a full committee hearing on Wednesday, September 25, 2024, at 10 A.M. EDT to consider the following Presidential nominations:
Nominees:- Carl Bentzel to serve another term as a Commissioner on the Federal Maritime Commission
- Thomas Chapman to serve another term as a Member on the National Transportation Safety Board
- Lanhee Chen to be a Director on the Amtrak Board of Directors
Markup of AI, Small Modular Reactor Demonstrations, National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program Legislation
- H.R. 9671, Department of Energy Artificial Intelligence Act of 2024. Provides guidance for and investment in the research and development activities of artificial intelligence at the Department of Energy.
- H.R. 9710, Small Modular Reactor Demonstration Act of 2024. Amends the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to support a program to advance the research, development, demonstration, and commercial application of small modular reactors and micro-reactors in order to accelerate the availability of United States-based technologies.
- H.R. 9720, AI Incident Reporting and Security Enhancement Act. Directs the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology to update the national vulnerability database to reflect vulnerabilities to artificial intelligence systems and study the need for voluntary reporting related to artificial intelligence security and safety incidents.
- H.R. 9723, National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program Reauthorization Act of 2024. Reauthorizes the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program (NWIRP), providing critical funding for the program to continue its research into how to mitigate the injuries and property damage caused by windstorms.
Continuing Resolution, Fix Our Forests Act (H.R. 8790), and Other Legislation
- H.R. ___ – Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025
The Committee on Rules will meet Monday, September 23, 2024 at 4:00 PM ET in H-313, The Capitol on the following measures:
- H.R. 3334 – Sanctioning Tyrannical and Oppressive People within the Chinese Communist Party Act
- H.R. 8205 – Keeping Violent Offenders Off Our Streets Act
- H.R. 8790 – Fix Our Forests Act
- H. Res. 1469 – Ensuring accountability for key officials in the Biden-Harris administration responsible for decisionmaking and execution failures throughout the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
- NEPA Rollbacks: This bill weakens the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), limiting environmental reviews and public input—key goals of Project 2025.
- Endangered Species Act (ESA): Provisions in H.R. 8790 undermine ESA protections for wildlife habitats, reflecting Project 2025’s push for economic interests over environmental safeguards.
- Federal Land Management: H.R. 8790 promotes increased logging on BLM and National Forest lands, aligning with Project 2025’s priorities for extraction industries.
- Anti-Climate Science Rhetoric: This bill misuses wildfire narratives to justify logging, despite the fact that most fires this year have occurred in grass, rangeland, and shrublands—not forests. This highlights that logging is not a solution to the real causes of wildfire activity, such as climate change and urban development. For detailed fire data, please refer to this tool.
Fusion Energy Technology Development
The purpose of this hearing is to examine fusion energy technology development and commercialization efforts.
Witnesses:- Dr. Jean Paul Allain, Associate Director of the Office of Fusion Energy Services, United States Department of Energy
- Jackie Siebens, Director of Public Affairs and Helion Energy Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council Global Energy Center
- Dr. Patrick White, Research Director, Nuclear Innovation Alliance
EPA Spending and Regulatory Policies under the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
Subcommittee hearing titled “Holding the Biden-Harris EPA Accountable for Radical Rush-to-Green Spending.”
Witness:- Sean W. O’Donnell, Inspector General, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Biden Energy Policy
Full committee hearing entitled “The Cost of the Biden-Harris Energy Crisis.”
Witnesses:- Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Director of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment, The Heritage Foundation
- Alex Epstein, President and Founder, Center for Industrial Progress
- Donna Jackson, Director of Membership Development, Project 21
Furchtgott-Roth is the author of the Department of Transportation chapter for Project 2025.
Epstein recently participated in the Alliance For Responsible Citizenship conference convened by Jordan Peterson with support from the Heritage Foundation.
Project 21 is a project of the National Center for Public Policy Research, a Project 2025 partner. Donna Jackson served on the advisory board for Project 2025.
Evaluating the Potential of Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal Approaches
The purpose of this hearing is to explore the benefits and risks of marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) approaches as they relate to carbon capture and sequestration. In addition, this hearing will inform members on research and development of this technology and address scientific gaps and deficiencies facing researchers and scientists today.
Witnesses:- Noah Deich, Senior Advisor, Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, U.S. Department of Energy
- Dr. Sarah Kapnick, Chief Scientist, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce
- Ben Tarbell, CEO and Co-Founder, Ebb Carbon
- Dr. Scott Doney, Joe D. and Helen J. Kington Professor in Environmental Change, The University of Virginia
The ocean is the Earth’s largest carbon sink, holding 42 times the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that is in the atmosphere and absorbing 25% of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions each year. Global atmospheric carbon reduction efforts have led scientists to try to enhance the ocean’s natural sequestration abilities by developing mCDR techniques. Leveraging the ocean can help diversify the range of carbon dioxide removal approaches, reducing the pressure on land-based approaches.1 Marine CDR can also have non-carbon environmental benefits, such as reducing ocean acidification, replenishing ecosystems, and providing jobs. However, most mCDR techniques have not been tested at scale, and a few are at the earliest stages of research. Dedicated resources, including streamlined permitting, to enable research will help clarify the uncertainties associated with mCDR.
The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is home to the Ocean Acidification Program (OAP), established to better understand impacts of ocean acidification and adaptation. In May 2023, the program, in collaboration with the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, published their paper Strategy for NOAA Carbon Dioxide Removal Research: A White Paper documenting a potential NOAA CDR Science Strategy as an element of NOAA’s Climate Interventions Portfolio. In September 2023, OAP announced $23.4 million in funding for public and private research in mCDR, with a focus on understanding uncertainties and filling knowledge gaps for different mCDR approaches. These awards support 17 projects with partners from 47 institutions to further enhance efficiency of marine research and provide NOAA with funding and information sharing opportunities to advance mCDR development.
The Department of Energy (DOE) supports mCDR as a key technology development area. It is a central component of DOE’s Carbon Negative Shot — calling for innovation in CDR pathways that can capture CO2 and store it at gigaton scales for less than $100/net metric ton of CO2-equivalent. In October 2023, DOE announced $36 million for 11 projects across 8 states, funneled through the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s (ARPA-E) Sensing Exports of Anthropogenic Carbon through Ocean Observation (SEA-CO2) program, to accelerate the development of mCDR technologies. The focus of the projects receiving these funds is to advance sensing and modeling techniques that more accurately measure the impacts of mCDR technologies. Supported projects include development of fiber optic sensor cables, micro-electronic seafloor probes, and ocean carbon flux monitoring. If successful, SEA-CO2 measurement, reporting, and verification technology innovations will ensure that the quantity and quality of emission removals are correctly valued.