Climate Action
Hands off Our Public Lands
September 27, 2025
On the southern banks of Lake Superior in Wisconsin lie nearly 125,000 acres of marshy wetlands and forests thick with white pine, paper birch, and northern white cedar. Pristine freshwater estuaries dotted with wild rice and maple trees wind through this land, supporting wildlife such as black bears (known as makwa in the Ojibwe language), wolves (ma’iingan), and piping plover. This is the home of the Bad River Band of Ojibwe (Mashkiiziibii), and an encroaching intruder: the Line 5 pipeline.
Line 5 is a 72-year-old oil pipeline owned by Canadian company Enbridge. It runs between Sarnia, Ontario, and Superior, Wisconsin, crossing near the Bad River watershed and threatening the local water supply and ecosystems. The pipeline has ruptured 33 times in the last 50 years, leaking approximately 1.3 million gallons of oil into the environment.
Enbridge’s easements to operate the pipeline on Bad River tribal land expired in 2013 and were not renewed by the tribe. Four years later, as Enbridge continued to pump oil through Line 5, and the Bad River Band passed a formal resolution demanding Enbridge remove Line 5 from their lands.
The tribe sued Enbridge in federal court in 2019 for trespassing. On June 16, 2023, U.S. District Judge William Conley ruled that Enbridge is illegally trespassing on the Bad River Reservation and must cease operating the 12-mile portion of Line 5 on tribal land by June 16, 2026. The court also ordered Enbridge to pay the tribe $5.1 million for profits earned during the trespass and declared Line 5 a public nuisance. Enbridge has appealed this decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and litigation is ongoing. The pipeline continues to pump 540,000 barrels of light crude oil, light synthetic crude oil, and natural gas liquids over sensitive ecosystems every day, 22 years beyond the pipeline’s intended lifespan.
Unfortunately, Line 5 isn’t an outlier.
All across the U.S., both tribal and public lands have become ground zero for new oil, gas, and coal extraction. Between 2017 and 2020 alone, 461 million acres of public land — a land mass bigger than Alaska — was offered up for lease to the fossil fuel industry. Private fossil fuel companies bid to gain the rights to these leases to explore for and extract oil, gas, or coal on specific parcels of public land or offshore water
Research from 2022 estimates that nearly 20% (around one-fifth) of all U.S. climate emissions through the year 2030 will come from fossil fuels extracted on public lands and waters owned by the federal government. This calculation includes emissions released from drilling, mining, transportation, and the burning of fossil fuels produced on those lands.
At a time when many nations are pushing to reduce carbon emissions, our reliance on outdated, polluting energy sources — like gas, coal and oil, especially those operating on public lands — contradicts global environmental goals. U.S. public lands need to shift from wrecking the atmosphere to helping heal the planet.
Public Lands Help Mitigate Climate Change
The land has long been a natural storage unit for carbon dioxide. Forest, grassland, and wetland ecosystems each have a role to play in negating anthropogenic, or man-made, climate emissions.
Plants capture greenhouse gases in their roots, stems, and soil, soothing the effects of global warming by preventing these gases from polluting the atmosphere. Just last year, scientists discovered that plants absorb 31% more carbon dioxide than previously thought. Forests especially serve as excellent “carbon sinks,” slurping down huge amounts of carbon dioxide. In 2021, forests alone accounted for 96% of the land sector’s carbon storage.
In 2020, the U.S. House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis released the Climate Action Plan, including goals to leverage public lands as essential tools in combating climate change. Their recommendations include an aim to protect 30% of all U.S. lands and waters by 2030, especially those areas with “high ecological, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration value.” They also explicitly call for limiting new fossil fuel leasing on public lands and protecting and restoring aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems to better capture carbon and improve resilience to devastating climate impacts like wildfires and flooding.
Conservation Leasing
Rather than leasing valuable and sensitive public areas to fossil fuel giants, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which oversees public lands, had considered “conservation leasing” under the Biden administration. Conservation leasing allowed for “compensatory mitigation” owed at the state or federal level, for the unavoidable impacts to natural resources or habitats that the development of new clean energy projects incurred.
But, under the Trump administration, the reverse is happening. This government has aggressively expanded fossil fuel leasing and development. This administration’s new approach, is branded as “energy dominance,” and prioritizes rapid leasing and extraction of oil, gas, coal, and minerals on public lands and waters, often rolling back environmental protections and sidelining conservation efforts.
This has included launching multiple large-scale lease sales, weakening regulations, and reducing public and tribal input in land management decisions. As a result, conservation leasing strategies aimed at directing mitigation and restoration efforts to public lands have been largely abandoned in favor of maximizing fossil fuel production, even in sensitive and ecologically valuable areas. This is devastating news for anyone who cares about the climate, human health, nature and wildlife.
Protecting Our Lands
As of 2024, public lands accounted for 28% of all U.S. lands, featuring countless diversity rich wetlands, old-growth forests, and awe-inspiring mountain ranges. The land is also home to some 567 federally recognized Native American reservations, including the Bad River Band whose fight to have their voices heard and respected remains on-going.
Our living, pulsing, carbon-absorbing lands deserve a chance to breathe free from the fumes of fossil fuel interests. Their stoic beauty and diverse ecosystems merit respect and humility. With this in mind, EARTHDAY.ORG invites you to support The Canopy Tree Project to continue the crucial work of reforesting areas, like public lands, devastated by environmental disasters.
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