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CONSERVATION GROUPS’ COMMENTS UNCOMPAHGRE FIELD OFFICE RMP AND DEIS 2 above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C.”7 The President ratified the Paris Agreement, along with China, on September 3, 2016.8 The President has also recognized that “the Paris Agreement alone will not solve the climate crisis. Even if we meet every target embodied in the agreement, we’ll only get to part of where we need to go.”9 Although national policy and statements addressing climate change have accelerated in recent years—as they should given the narrowing window of time to take meaningful action— the federal government’s recognition of climate change is not new. The Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior stated, in Secretarial Order 3226, Evaluating Climate Change Impacts in Management Planning (January 19, 2001), that “[t]here is a consensus in the international community that global climate change is occurring and that it should be addressed in governmental decision making.” Order 3226 established the responsibility of agencies to “consider and analyze potential climate change impacts when undertaking long-range planning exercises, when setting priorities for scientific research and investigations, when developing multi-year management plans, and/or when making major decisions regarding potential utilization of resources under the Department’s purview.” In a 2007 report entitled Climate Change: Agencies Should Develop Guidance for Addressing the Effects on Federal Land and Water Resources, the GAO concluded that the Department of the Interior had not provided specific guidance to implement Secretarial Order 3226, that officials were not even aware of Secretarial Order 3226, and that Secretarial Order 3226 had effectively been ignored. This report led to Secretarial Order 3289, Addressing the Impacts of Climate Change on America’s Water, Land, and Other Natural and Cultural Resources (September 14, 2009), which reinstated the provisions of Order 3226, and recognized that “the realities of climate change require us to change how we manage land, water, fish and wildlife, and cultural heritage and tribal lands and resources we oversee,” and acknowledged that the Department of the Interior is “responsible for helping protect the nation from the impacts of climate change.” A month later, in Executive Order No. 13514, Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance (Oct. 5, 2009), President Obama called on all federal agencies to “measure, report, and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from direct and indirect activities.” 74 Fed. Reg. 52,117 (Oct. 8, 2009). This directive was followed by Executive Order No. 13693, Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade (March 25, 2015), which reaffirmed the federal government’s commitment to reducing GHG emissions. 80 Fed. Reg. 15,871 (March 25, 2015). 7 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Conference of the Parties (Nov 30- Dec. 11, 2015), Adoption of the Paris Agreement, Art. 2, U.N. Doc. FCCC/CP/2015/L.9 (Dec. 12, 2015), available at: http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09.pdf (“Paris Agreement”) (attached as Exhibit 2). 8 The White House, President Obama: The United States Formally Enters the Paris Agreement (Sept. 3, 2016), available at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/09/03/president-obama- united-states-formally-enters-paris-agreement. 9 The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, Remarks by the President on the Paris Agreement (Oct. 5, 2016), attached as Exhibit 3, and available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/10/05/remarks-president-paris-agreement (last viewed Oct. 26, 2016).