Elizabeth Warren says she will ban oil and gas drilling on public lands if elected President

Senator Elizabeth Warren says that if elected President in 2020 she will sign an executive order that would place a “total moratorium on all new fossil fuel leases including for drilling offshore and on public lands,” on day one of her presidency.

Warren, who states that it is “wrong to prioritize corporate profits over the health and safety of our local communities,” via an article she wrote on Medium, also wants to reinstate the methane pollution rule and clean water rules.

Several prominent environmentalists praised the announcement:

This proclomation from the Democratic presidential hopeful are part of a detailed plan to protect public lands. The proposal calls for a boost in renewable energy as well as banning all new fossil fuel leases. In other words, the direct opposite of what the Trump administration has been doing.

Warren plans to increase the amount of electricity generated from renewable energy on public lands and offshore areas to 10% of the nation’s overall supple, ten times what we are currently generating.

Royalities from renewable generation would be shared with state and local communities and expanding renewables would be done in a way that would limit the impact on local ecology, says Warren.

Furthermore, Warren pledged, “As president, I will use my authorities under the Antiquities Act to restore protections to both monuments and any other national monuments targeted by this Administration.”

“We hand over drilling rights to fossil fuel companies for practically no money at all — and then turn around and charge families who make the minimum wage more than a day’s pay to access our parks,” Warren says.

Warren also plans to:

• Make Land and Conservation Fund spending mandatory to ensure that we continue to preserve and enhance public lands for conservation and recreation.
• Fully fund our public land management agencies and eliminate the infrastructure and maintenance backlog on our public lands in her first term.
• Recruit 10,000 young people and veterans to jumpstart a 21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps — and increase the budget of AmeriCorps’ one-year fellowship program to fund it.
• Make entry into our parks free to ensure that visiting our nation’s treasures is within reach for every American family.
• Unlocking 50% of the 10 million acres in the West that are inaccessible acres, to grow our outdoor economy, help ease the burden on our most popular lands, and to provide a financial boost across rural America.
• Meaningfully incorporate the role of state, local, and tribal stakeholders in the management of public lands.

Warren is a cosponsor of the Green New Deal resolution. She remains one of only three 2020 Democratic candidates to receive across the board approval from 350 Action’s 2020 climate policy scorecard.