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WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Bureau of Land Management is announcing $4.5 million from the Inflation Reduction Act —the largest climate investment in history —to improve sagebrush habitat on both public and private lands as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda.  

The funds will expand on proven success by continuing and expanding a partnership with the Intermountain West Joint Venture for sagebrush conservation and restoration work for an additional five years. The effort will benefit greater sage-grouse, other wildlife species, and the health of BLM-managed public lands. 

“Remarkable things happen when Westerners work together,” said BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning. “This funding through President Biden’s Investing in America agenda will leverage the power of partnerships between government agencies, communities, landowners, industry, and non-profits for the shared goal of improving sagebrush habitat and rangeland health." 

“Sagebrush country is home to a variety of plants and wildlife and contains biological, cultural, and economic resources that are of national significance, like the greater sage-grouse,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams. “Partnerships with BLM and the Intermountain West Joint Venture on sagebrush projects are critical and amplify shared conservation efforts for this important landscape and the wildlife and people that call it home.” 

Through the Investing in America agenda, the Department of the Interior is implementing more than $2 billion in investments to restore our nation’s lands and waters and advance the America the Beautiful initiative to restore and conserve 30% of lands and waters by 2030. To guide these historic investments, the Department released a restoration and resilience framework earlier this year to support coordination across agency restoration and resiliency programs and drive transformational outcomes, including a commitment to defend and grow sagebrush ecosystems. By working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers, state and local leaders, Tribal Nations, the outdoor recreation community, private landowners, and other stakeholders, the Department is working to build ecological resilience in core habitats and make landscape-scale restoration investments across sagebrush country. Today’s announcement also comes on the heels of last week’s first-ever White House Summit on Building Climate Resilient Communities. 

The partnership between the BLM and the Intermountain West Joint Venture will address threats and opportunities in sagebrush ecosystems, focusing on six strategies: 

• reducing catastrophic rangeland wildfires; 
• preventing and controlling noxious and invasive weeds; 
• restoring wet meadow and riparian habitats; 
• removing conifers that have expanded into sagebrush habitat;  
• supporting outcome-based grazing and rangeland health; and   
• coordinating habitat protection and restoration actions associated with big game migratory corridor efforts.  

Under the partnership, the Intermountain West Joint Venture will fund 13 new professional positions in western communities to support BLM staff working to deploy restoration projects in BLM’s recently-identified Restoration Landscapes. These new roles are in addition to 17 existing positions that serve as a proven, successful model for cross-jurisdictional conservation and restoration work. The FWS will manage the funding for the agreement under the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act. 

In 2010, the FWS placed the greater sage-grouse on the candidate species list under the Endangered Species Act. In 2015, the FWS withdrew the species from the candidate list after broad conservation efforts among federal, state, and private stakeholders. The Intermountain West Joint Venture partnership followed a year later to coordinate additional efforts across jurisdictional and ownership boundaries in the western United States. The partnership funding announced today continues that effort. 

The $4.5 million announced today adds to previously announced plans to infuse $161 million from the Inflation Reduction Act in 21 Restoration Landscapes, and the nearly $40 million the Bureau already deployed in these areas from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.