2024 POLICY AGENDA

Join us in advocating for progress toward our shared goals

The America the Beautiful for All Coalition(ATB4All) is thrilled to announce the release of our 2024 Policy Agenda.

We unite land, freshwater, and ocean advocates who reflect the diversity of the U.S. and territories to catalyze action by the Presidential Administration and Congress on our twin goals: conserving 30% of lands and waters by 2030 and implementing a Justice40 metric in conservation investments. Developed by the Coalition’s workgroups and steering committee, and representing nearly 200 organizations, the Policy Agenda outlines public health and justice-oriented conservation priorities.

For too long, communities of color and frontline communities have been disproportionately harmed by environmental injustices like pollution, nature destruction, and unsafe or unwelcoming outdoor spaces and been denied an equitable place at environmental decision-making tables. The Policy Agenda is released as we look back on 60 years of the Civil Rights Act and the Wilderness Act: historic bills that changed the course of U.S. history but were never combined in virtue. 60 years later, the 2024 Policy Agenda defines priorities that will improve public health for all, secure equitable access to conservation funding for tribes and frontline communities, and increase equal access to nature for everyone.

Some highlights include:

• More than $141 million in funding from the America the Beautiful Challenge Grants in 2023 with 40% of funds going to Tribal communities.
• Extremist attacks on the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) continue in pursuit of so-called “permitting form” and the guise of supporting renewable energy. These are diversion tactics meant to weaken the environmental bill of rights for communities.
• The Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge (TX) was approved for Border Wall expansion, waiving critical environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Air Act

We believe forward movement on these policy priorities will support a sustainable and equitable future for all communities – especially those who have for too long been denied rightful voices at the table.

BREAKING: National Coalition Announces Forward-looking Federal Policy Agenda for Conservation and Environmental Justice

WASHINGTON, DC (February 12, 2024) — A historically broad and diverse coalition of hundreds of organizations is announcing the release of a unified and ambitious 2024 national policy agenda aimed at conserving 30 percent of lands and waters by 2030. The America the Beautiful For All Coalition (ATB4All) comprises people representing hundreds of organizations, missions, cultures, and identities. The Coalition developed the 2024 Policy Agenda to achieve the most ambitious conservation goal of the century.

The ATB4All Coalition views the loss of nature as a global and national threat with potentially devastating impacts on communities nationwide. According to their research, if past trends continue, the United States can expect to lose an additional 15.3 million acres of nature over the next 10 years. Currently, 34 percent of plants and 40 percent of animals are at risk of extinction, and 41 percent of ecosystems are at risk of collapse. Nature disparities add to racial injustices, too: 74 percent of communities of color in the contiguous United States live in nature-deprived areas, compared with just 23 percent of white communities. The impacts of these trends disproportionately harm communities of color and communities on the frontlines of the nature-loss and climate change crises.