By BEN NEARY
NMWF Conservation Director
Tom Udall, New Mexico’s senior U.S. senator, emphasized the need for conservation in his farewell remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday.
Udall announced last year that he’s stepping down from the Senate at the end of the year. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, also a Democrat, won the race for the open Senate seat this last month.
Udall didn’t speak directly to speculation that President-elect Joe Biden may tap him to serve as U.S. secretary of interior — a position that Udall’s father Stewart Udall held under presidents Kennedy and Johnson. But the senator said he’s looking forward to returning to the West.
Udall called this year’s passage of the Great American Outdoors Act one of the greatest conservation victories in American history. The act, which enjoyed bi-partisan support, assures full funding of $900 million a year to the Land and Water Conservation Fund to acquire important properties around the country. It also puts up nearly $2 billion a year for five years to address deferred maintenance projects on federal lands.
“For the first time, we’ve realized the promise of the Land and Water Conservation Fund — the promise my father envisioned 55 years ago when he helped create our nation’s most successful conservation program,” Udall said. “After more than 20 years of fighting for this in Congress, I’m thrilled we got it done and we got it done together. The law is a model for how conservation and economic recovery go hand in hand. It will help us achieve the urgent goal of protecting 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030.”
Enacting the Great American Outdoors Act at a time of immense political division in the country was a tremendous feat, Udall said. “And it tells us a lot about what we’re capable of,” he said. “It tells us that conservation is popular, a political winner, environmental protection can be an area of cooperative action. It must be if humanity is to survive and prosper.”
The need for action on the environment is dire, Udall said.
“In New Mexico, we’re in the crosshairs of climate change,” Udall said. “We lose a football field’s worth of nature every 30 seconds. A million species are at risk of extinction because of human activity. Our planet’s life-support system is under threat as the climate crisis worsens, ecosystems are destroyed, and as ecosystems are destroyed we emit more harmful greenhouse gases.”
The nation cannot solve one crisis without solving the others, Udall said. “Protecting nature is about protecting humanity. It’s just that simple,” he said. “And marginalized communities, communities of color, low-income communities, indigenous people are bearing the worst consequences of the environmental destruction and pollution caused by the rich and powerful. We have the power to solve these crises, the power and the obligation. All it takes is clear eyes and political will. And remembering that we may disagree in politics, but not in the future that we want for our children.
“So as I return home to the West, I am clear-eyed, even troubled by how far away our destination is. But I am optimistic that we will get there like we always have,” Udall said.
Udall thanked his wife, Jill Cooper Udall, for her support over his three decades of public service. He was elected New Mexico attorney general in 1991, to the U.S. House in 1998 and to the Senate in 2008. He also thanked his congressional staffers and his friends in both parties.
Yet Udall said he views the Senate as it stands today to be broken. He said too many are more interested in winning at all costs, rather than working across party lines for the good of the nation.
Udall said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., served as his mentor when Udall first entered the Senate. “John often said to me, ‘we disagree in politics, but not in life,’” Udall said. “Let’s remember that, ‘we disagree in politics, but not in life.’”
Jesse Deubel, executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, said Tuesday that Udall has been an effective champion for the state’s wildlife and wild places.
“Senator Udall has kept up his family tradition of working tirelessly to protect the special places in the American West,” Deubel said.
“Together with Sen. Martin Heinrich, Udall has passed critical legislation to protect the Rio Grande del Norte, the Organ Mountains and other areas,” Deubel said. “Here at the federation, we look forward to carrying on the senator’s efforts to see the Gila River and its tributaries protected under the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.”
The NMWF also fully supports Udall’s call to protect 30 percent of the nation’s lands by the year 2030, Deubel said.
“This is a critical issue in terms of protecting hunting, fishing and wildlife,” Deubel said of the 30 percent by 2030 effort. “This goes beyond politics. We have an urgent need to protect our landscapes and ecosystems and watersheds on a grand scale. Climate change is real, and it’s up to us to act to protect the lands we will leave to our children.”