The Outdoor Policy Forecast for 2023
Joshua Tree, California. Photo credit: Alex Rhee
Every year, Outdoor Alliance’s policy team comes up with a list of priority issues for the outdoors and forecasts what they think the landscape in D.C. will look like. While it is notoriously difficult to predict how lawmakers will behave, there are a few issues that will be particularly salient in the coming year.
Here are five predictions for the conservation and recreation issues we think will have the most traction and how it could all go down this year:
1. Recreation package. America’s Outdoor Recreation Act and a package of landscape protections narrowly missed being passed as part of an end-of-year package in 2022. This bill represents a decade of work by the outdoor recreation community, and due to its bipartisan support, will likely regain momentum in the new Congress. This bill, along with proposals to protect important conservation lands, will continue to be a priority for the outdoor community.
2. Mining Reform. Our country’s current mining law has been unchanged since 1872. Poorly-conceived mining projects directly threaten important outdoor recreation landscapes, including the South Fork Salmon River in Idaho, the Boundary Waters in Minnesota, and Oak Flat in Arizona. There is tremendous momentum to transition the country to clean energy, and that will likely require more mining on federal public lands. This mining, however, needs to be done responsibly, and in a way that accounts for the concerns of Tribes as well as public lands stakeholders like recreationists. After more than 150 years, momentum is finally building to bring our mining laws into the 21st century. This is necessary both to protect landscapes, rivers and lakes, and local communities, but also to make mining companies more accountable for pollution and to provide more certainty about where to source the critical minerals needed for a clean energy economy.
3. Put Historic Climate and Public Lands Funding into Action. Major successes of the last Congress included a historic climate law (the Inflation Reduction Act) and a bipartisan infrastructure law (the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act), both of which included billions of dollars of investments in federal public lands. Federal agencies now face the enormous task of putting these funds into action to support climate and restoration goals, as well as other priorities. Outdoor Alliance plans to invest energy in collaborating with federal agencies to ensure that, where appropriate, these investments support recreation priorities, and also in pushing back on any attempts to roll back or undermine these investments in the new Congress.
4. Wildfire management. Wildfires continue to be punishing in the West and will get continued focus from policymakers on both sides of the aisle. Wildfire-related programs received significant funding from both the IRA and the IIJA, and as a result, the Forest Service and other agencies now have an opportunity to help make forests and communities more resilient to wildfire. This, combined with the opportunity to improve wildfire and forest policy in the must-pass 2023 Farm Bill, mean that wildfire management will get a lot of attention in 2023.
5. National Monuments. The Biden administration has shown a deep commitment to conserving public lands and waters, and that is likely to continue with a number of new National Monument designations in the new year. In late 2022, the President committed to protecting Avi Kwa Ame, a landscape in southern Nevada that is considered sacred by multiple Tribes, which is likely to be designated a monument. There are a number of other landscapes that are ripe for monument designation, including some of the landscape protection proposals that did not pass in the last Congress.
Even before the protracted attempts to elect a speaker, we predicted that the state of affairs in the House would be chaotic at best. Congress is divided and Republicans have a very slim majority in the House. Whoever ends up driving the bus in the House is going to have a difficult job getting lawmakers on the same page. In terms of outdoor policy, this means that it may be a rowdy year for passing legislation and it may be difficult to get things across the finish line. That said, this means it’s a good time to plant seeds and ensure that when the wheels start rolling again, there is strong conservation and recreation legislation moving. We also predict that the shifting balance of power could mean more shenanigans, especially in terms of land sell off and land transfer proposals, which despite their resounding unpopularity, keep making appearances and will need to be resoundingly beaten back.
All that said, we have seen success for both conservation and recreation in a divided Congress before, including passing major legislation like the Great American Outdoors Act and the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act. The political winds could align in a similar way in 2023, and if that happens, there are plenty of opportunities to do good things for outdoor recreation and public lands.
You can help be a part of beating back the bad ideas and supercharging the wins this year by signing up to get action alerts where we give you up-to-the-minute beta for when your voice can make a difference in protecting the places you love.