Center for Western Priorities

Center for Western Priorities started a project, the 30×30 Disinformation Brigade, to condemn critics of the Biden administration’s 30×30 plan to designate 30 percent of American land as protected land by 2030 as part of its focus on labeling opponents of environmentalist programs as extremists. The project targets right-of-center individuals and organizations as spreaders of so-called “disinformation” and for being extremists for opposing the administration’s 30×30 plan. ³

Background

Center for Western Priorities is a Denver, Colorado-based project of Resources Legacy Fund that advocates for environmentalist policies in the western United States. ¹ Its policy agenda includes advocating for expanding protected public lands in the name of conservation, as well as preventing conventional energy production, subsidizing environmentalist energy production, and subsidizing conservation programs. ^{4 5}

Center for Western Priorities conducts polls on support for environmentalist policies in western states and publishes reports that track how aggressive western states are at expanding public lands with conservation protections and criticizes those that are not aggressive enough at doing so. It uses its research to support its campaigns that advocate for environmentalist policies and to encourage political candidates to adopt said policies as part of their agenda. ²

Campaigns

Winning the West is a Center for Western Priorities campaign that advocates for right-of-center and left-of-center political candidates to support increased conservation regulations that would expand protected lands and prevent production of conventional energy. The campaign uses its polls that claim environmentalist policies have bipartisan support and cites instances of individual successes of Republican and Democratic campaigns for environmentalist policies to argue that all candidates should adopt the policies. ⁶

In 2020, Center for Western Priorities initiated a campaign in support of the Biden administration’s 30×30 plan, which is a plan to designate 30 percent of American land as protected land by 2030. As part of the campaign, Center for Western Priorities worked with then Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) and other environmentalist activists to do virtual and public appearances to garner support for expanding public lands with conservation protections. ⁷

The 30×30 Disinformation Brigade

The 30×30 Disinformation Brigade is a project of Center for Western Priorities that was created in response to condemn the speech and character of opponents of the Biden administration’s 30×30 plan. It lists specific critics as proponents of so-called “disinformation,” including U.S. Representatives Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who is listed as an insurrectionist and “QAnon supporter,” and Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who is listed as a “White Nationalist” and conspiracy theorist. The project works to promote the designation of the right-of-center individuals and groups who are critical of the 30×30 plan as being extremists. ³

Leadership

Rachel Hamby has worked as the policy director for Center for Western Priorities since 2022. Previously, Hamby worked as a senior policy analyst for Western Resource Advocates where she engaged in state-level environmentalist policy campaigns. ¹