LINCOLN- Placing more of the nation’s water and land in conservation can help protect the environment and address climate change. The Biden administration in part brought this problem on itself by announcing in January the 30x30 concept — putting 30% of the nation’s land and water in conservation status by 2030 — via an executive order that provided no practical guidance on how an initiative of such complexity and ambition would be implemented. The lack of information and failure to provide upfront outreach came across as arrogant and fueled cynicism and uncertainty among many farmers and ranchers.

Protection of private property stands as one of the central tenets of the federal Constitution, and rightly so. Federal officials must build on points in the interagency report and do a far better job explaining how the government intends to use existing conservation initiatives — such as the Conservation Reserve Program long used in the Midlands — to reach the proposed goal.

Gov. Pete Ricketts has been outspoken in opposing the 30x30 proposal. But through his rhetoric and actions at recent public events, he is at risk of coming across less as the state’s elected chief executive than as a political figure seeking to ride producers’ cynicism and anger in pursuit of political gain. It was distressing, for example, that Ricketts stooped to calling Vilsack a liar at one anti-30x30 event.

“When the agriculture secretary says it’s not a land grab, then you know it is a land grab,” Ricketts said.

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