“We will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.” — James Watt, Ronald Reagan’s first Interior secretary.
As we wait for the incoming Trump administration to identify its nominee for Interior secretary, we can't help but envision what the outcome could be. Among those said to be under consideration, or jockeying for the job, are retiring U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, and Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, all Republicans who favor energy exploration over conservation.
What shouldn’t go unnoticed is that Donald Trump could place the immediate future of hundreds of millions of acres of publicly owned lands — lands that all 321.4 million Americans have a vested interest in — into the hands of a politician who hasn’t shown they have the country’s best interests in mind when it comes to fracking regulations, public lands stewardship, or environmental protection.
- Rep. Lummis has supported legislation that would give states control over fracking regulations on federal lands in their state; has opposed the Obama administration’s climate change program; signed legislation that opponents said “would prevent the EPA from protecting the world class fisheries of Bristol Bay, Alaska” from the proposed Pebble Mine; and voted along the lines of the League of Conservation Voters just 5 percent of the time during her eight years in the House.
- Rep. Bishop has tried time and again to restrict the president’s use of the Antiquities Act to designate national monuments; helped found the Federal Land Action Group, FLAG, which works to transfer federal lands to states; declined requests that he denounce “Bundy-style thuggery and lawlessness on our nation’s public lands;” and been criticized for introducing legislation that opponents claim would weaken the Clean Air Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the National Forest Management Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Wilderness Act.
- Gov. Fallin has embraced pro-oil policies in Oklahoma; been criticized by the Sierra Club for having “been an absentee governor on all important environmental issues in our state during her term;” signed legislation that prohibited local governments in Oklahoma from banning hydrologic fracking; and in October led a day of prayer “to thank God for the blessings created by the oil and natural gas industry and to seek His wisdom and ask for protection.”
If you believe James Conca, a contributor to Forbes on energy and the environment, who on November 10 wrote that “energy in the new Administration will be just what the industry ordered,” you can further appreciate how any nominee Trump chooses for Interior will be bad for public lands management if you oppose energy exploration, want additional national monuments, and support federal land ownership.
And there has been much speculation over whether Mr. Trump could rescind monument designations bestowed on such places as Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine as well as Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah.
The prospect of the next Interior secretary being a hard-line conservative who believes lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management or U.S. Forest Service should either be given to the states within which they exist or simply opened up to more energy exploration and logging is understandably concerning to those who appreciate public lands for recreation and habitat conservation and oppose rampant, loosely regulated fossil fuel energy production.
Then, too, there’s the economic return from preserving public lands. According to the Center for Western Priorities, one study indicates that 90 percent of America’s public lands already are open to oil and gas leasing, while just 10 percent are set aside for recreation, conservation, and other uses. Too, it's been demonstrated that counties with more protected lands, such as national monuments, perform better economically than counties without such protected areas. Additionally, surveys conducted by Colorado College conclude that majorities of voters in Western states believe public lands should remain under control of the federal government.
While the National Park System may not be directly impacted by energy development under the next administration, it very well could be adversely impacted by land management along its borders.
At the end of the day, we should question whether an Interior secretary who believes in aggressive energy exploration, reducing the size of public lands ownership, and weakening environmental regulations would be acting in the best interests of the entire U.S. population or simply in the interests of a fraction of that population and industry heads.
Comments
Nope. There are the other two groups that make up your minority of the votes. Those who have a vested interest in some way and ignore the ethics and those who are too clueless and just follow what they are misinformed about. I figure you for the first group.
Intolerance, Rick? Yesterday you were the one implying that an African-American surgeon lacked the skills and experience to be running HUD. A master demagogue, Ron? I believe it was Hillary Clinton who called the working class "deplorables" and "irredeemables." Yes, I would agree that Adolph Hitler was a master demagogue. Both the term and the history fit. But the term fits nothing about Mr. Trump's background, other than his determination to break through the fog of political correctness by remaining true to his base.
You imply that base is corrupt--easily bullied and easily misled. Forgive me, but my father was neither a bully nor a racist. But yes, he asked tough questions of his government, having known the German trenches of World War I. Is it not fair to ask tough questions rather than be spoonfed the "results?" Is it not fair to ask that the country take care of its legal citizens, for example, before inviting new citizens in? Like my maternal grandfather and grandmother, my father entered the United States through Ellis Island, there to renounce the worst of Europe.
Today, it's all about pronouncing and not renouncing. No one need give up a thing. Except the working class, which is asked to pay for it all, and if they don't go along we should call them what? Why, how about bullies and racists?
As Peggy Noonan rightfully asks, just how long did the Democratic Party think that could go on? Am I being "intolerant" to say "wait your turn?" My father waited ten years, as near as I can tell. By the 1920s, stricter immigration laws were in place. He came in 1928, ten years after World War I, five years of which he spent in Brazil. Not until 1944 did he secure a full-time job, that as a machinist at Ansco-Ozalid in Binghamton, New York. There he met mother, a farmer's daughter, with a ninth-grade education matching his eighth.
In the United States, when you start calling these people deplorables, you are certain to be despised (Peggy Noonan). They obeyed the rules; they followed the law. They took nothing out the system they hadn't earned. No one can "demagogue" them; no one can "bully" them; nor do they "fear" the truth. They just got sick and tired of hearing from poseurs all the time what they "owed' the poseurs (Peggy Noonan). You owe me your vote! I know better than you what your country is all about.
My "accomplishments," if you will, began by my owning up to my history--a history my father just couldn't escape. He died from his wounds, both psychological and physical, just as many people in the working class are suffering now. Who stands up for them? Trump dared, and didn't the Democratic Party go crazy, again arguing that "they" had had their "chance."
Yes, chances galore, beginning at Lexington and Concord, then the Bloody Angle, Pearl Harbor, and Omaha Beach. FDR knew his party; Hillary Clinton never did. Even when Bill pleaded with her to visit the Old Neighborhood, she could only repeat what she had been told. Don't worry about "them." Worry about "me." Only history knew to be suspicious of "me" over "us," but again, no one teaches about "us" in Women's Studies.
To be sure, I hear there is to be a women's march on Washington, DC, January 21 to protest the new administration. Again, let's not think about "us." Let's think about "me." FDR must be rolling in his grave.
That is right Rick, nobody with a vested interest voted for Hillary. LOL. By the way, what is my vested interest? The only ones that are clueless are the ones like Pelosi and Reid that think Trump won because his supporters were clueless (or deplorable). But keep thinking that way - it will lead to a long run for the Republicans.
How much of Tweet's win may have been due to voters who were so frustrated with both parties that when it came time to vote voted for him as protest believing he had no chance of winning. How many of those folks are now wondering what the heck happened. Ron and Alfred are both right because the bottom line of it all is the this nation --- and its ordinary citizens have been slipping deeper and deeper in to a cesspool of oligarchy.
While we need to work together to help the country, it doesn't mean that those of us who are sensible enough to realize that our nation has made a terrible mistake at the polls must remain silent. It will be our duty as citizens to stand firm and try to oppose policies and politics that may harm us.
That is patriotism at its finest. Blindly following a dishonest fool is simply stupidity.
Now, as Garrison wrote, we sit back and watch in disbelief.
And Esteemed Comrade, perhaps you need to check your math.
Sorry, Al. When i try to trudge my way through your standard-issue overly written post, i can't help but think "apologist/enabler of trump publish or perish many words to say apologist/enabler of trump". Tenured historians of the future, if they are allowewd to, will make point by point comparisons of Hitler's rise and Trump's rise.
So, Eric - are you still claiming without a shred of proof that the millions of voters that Hillary outscored Trump with were all illegal? You tried to assert it a while back and when challenged said no more. I say again, prove it or shut up.
Just a friendly remindernudge from the moderator to try to stay civil.....
Rick, what you think you know about European history is sadly lacking in the facts. But yes, you are right. The sickness that is now the American university is confident that Donald Trump is Adolph Hitler. No brown shirts, of course, and no SS. No concentration camps that I can see. But hey, why spoil a good rant with the facts? Charge $60,000 a year for another safe zone and call it an "education."
Rick, if you don't like being serious, I will not take you seriously. But don't play posuer with me. I write these posts because I enjoy The Traveler. A serious publication, it deserves a serious readership. And serious writers, too.
As for the popular vote, there are now some eye-opening analyses, and surely there will be more to come. As recently reported in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, between 2 percent and 15 percent of voters, dependent on state, county, precinct, etc., MIGHT (emphasis on might) have been illegally registered. Either they were dead, not citizens, or felons. Here in Washington State, you can register on line and simply check the box for citizenship. You don't have to show ANY proof.
There may not have been VOTER fraud, but there sure might have been REGISTRATION fraud. The experts simply don't know how much.
If that doesn't trouble you, what does? Steroids in the ballpark? Doping on the Tour de France? What is your threshold for lying and cheating?
My threshold is lying and cheating period. And playing fast and loose with the facts. Now, find a comfortable safe zone and read THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH, by William L. Shirer, and tell me there is any comparison to Donald Trump. While you're at it, throw in HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTIONERS: ORDINARY GERMANS AND THE HOLOCAUST, by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, and tell me there is any comparison there to the American people.
Get educated, in other words. Don't wait for the professors to do it, for you see, we already have. The professors of the future? I don't know about them, and can't speak for them, and the point is: Neither can you.
Rick, perhaps that is what you wanted to hear but that is not what I said. I suggested it as a possibility and did not state it as fact so there is nothing for me to prove.