President Joe Biden signed a climate change executive order during his first month in office, establishing the goal of protecting and conserving at least 30% of the nation's lands and waters by 2030. In pursuit of this objective, the administration is currently conducting an accounting of the nation's natural assets.
As stated in a blog post, the White House released the U.S. National Strategy to Develop Statistics for Environmental-Economic Decisions in early 2023. This strategy created a system to account for the nation's natural assets, including minerals, bodies of water, and forests. As part of this strategy, the Statistics for Environmental-Economic Decisions (SEED), a multi-agency initiative, will assign an economic value to "natural capital." Alongside SEED, four pilot natural accounts—land, water, air emissions, and environmental activities—were developed based on existing data to estimate quantities and values.
The blog post further reveals that preliminary results from Phase I Pilot National Land Account indicate that the United States possesses 2.3 billion acres of land. This land is used for recreational activities as well as food production; construction of homes, schools, and hospitals; energy production; and mineral mining. Wildlife also relies on this land for survival.
The total value of private land in the contiguous 48 states is $32 trillion, about 30% of the net wealth that has already been measured in U.S. accounts.
According to the same source, the Pilot National Water Account uses existing data to quantify water availability and usage by industry. Ultimately, this account will monitor both quantity and quality - key factors affecting availability and cost. The team working on this pilot has already developed a method to compute U.S. water quality and water emissions nationwide.
The blog post also mentions that the Bureau of Economic Analysis implemented the Pilot National Air Emissions Account using existing data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Natural Greenhouse Gas Inventory. This account measures greenhouse gas emissions by industry and estimates physical flows from 2012 to 2017. The fourth pilot, the National Environmental Activities Account, monitors activities—and associated expenditures—across various industries aimed at environmental protection, restoration, and preservation.
