Outdoor Retailer - January 2021 - 24

THE PULSE

Biden's climate policy
leaders, Gina McCarthy
and John Kerry

IN ADDITION TO GIVING CLIMATE A HOME IN HIS
CABINET, BIDEN'S TRANSITION WEBSITE OUTLINES
AN ALL-IN APPROACH TO CLIMATE WITH A CALL
FOR INVESTMENT IN INFRASTRUCTURE AND
EFFICIENT BUILDINGS, TRANSPORTATION, ENERGY,
AGRICULTURE, AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE.
the economy (recovery from longer, wetter
hurricane seasons and more intense wildfire
seasons is expensive), as well as health and
housing (extreme heat, wildfire smoke, and
floodwaters are all deadly). The military has
been transitioning to renewables; during
the Trump administration, it declared that
securing and processing rare earth minerals,
which are used in solar voltaics and batteries,
was a defense issue.
Molina has been following the Climate 21
Project, a set of memos from " 150 experts with
high-level government experience, including nine former cabinet appointees, " offering
advice, but not a policy agenda, on a " wholeof-government climate response coordinated
by the White House. " It's a framework for how
the Biden administration can be effective on
climate without Congress. " I think what they
realized-and we've learned from previous
administrations-is that going for one big

24 OUTDOOR RETAILER

/ January 2021

regulatory push is a risky proposition and can
be turned back, " Molina says.
There's bipartisan work to be done on climate regardless, Molina says. " Without Trump
in office and the threat of Trump going after
senators who don't stand by everything he
wants, there are center-moderate Republicans
who want to take action on climate, but it hasn't
been popular in the party, " he says. Like the
Outdoor Industry Association, which is nonpartisan, POW ambassadors lobby both sides of
the aisle and have found friends of the industry
in both parties. " My hope is that this is a time
when we can do bipartisan work on climate, "
says Molina.
Rich Harper, OIA's director of government
affairs, expressed a similar hope for the next
few years. " It's encouraging to think we're going to have the opportunity to make progress
across our policy agenda and continue to work
on a bipartisan basis-and that was the root

BEARS EARS AND 30X30
During the campaign, Biden promised to
" take immediate steps to reverse the Trump
administration's assaults on America's natural
treasures, including by reversing Trump's attacks on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,
Bears Ears, and Grand Staircase-Escalante. "
Since the election was called in November, advocates have been wondering whether Biden
will take action on public lands as early as his
first week in the White House.
" Public lands in general, but Bears Ears specifically, is one of the reasons the trade show
moved from Salt Lake to Denver, " Robinson
says. " I think for the industry, it's a good time
to remind ourselves-hey this is why we made
this big move. "
Robinson has been following the conversation around the 30x30 initiative, which calls for
protecting 30% of public lands and waterways
by 2030 in order to protect spaces that offset
our carbon expenditures and combat biodiversity loss. Some NGOs are using it as a longterm motivator, Robinson says. " Others are
thinking about doing GIS surveys to figure out
how we do that 30% in the United States now. "
Regardless of how you frame it, " 30x30 should
be an impetus for us to do more, to strive to do
more as quickly as possible, " he says.
But that action should still be thoughtful.
The summer's anti-racism protests against
police brutality brought a floodlight to a movement in the outdoor industry to examine just
how non-inclusive it has been. " We've focused
on the protection of big landscapes, so (now)
we're thinking about how green spaces that
are closer to urban areas can be protected as
well, " Robinson says.
" A lot of the voices that had been advocating for LWCF [Land and Water Conservation
Fund] are like, OK, let's push for 30x30; let's
get beyond advocating for the single funding
mechanism and create a broad framework of
meaning that could compel people to do things
at the national level. And state and municipal

From left: epa.gov, kerry.senate.gov

of the success in the GAOA, " says Harper. " We
spent 10 years working on that across the aisle,
and it took two Republican senators to get
that done. The outdoors is a bipartisan issue.
Outdoor recreation is a bipartisan issue. "

https://outdoorindustry.org/ http://kerry.senate.gov http://www.epa.gov

Outdoor Retailer - January 2021

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