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In its first 100 days, the Trump administration has waged a war on Americans' national public lands. It gutted the Environmental Protection Agency, fired thousands of Park Service and Forest Service employees, and dismissed hundreds of scientists working on the National Climate Assessment—a congressionally-required report on how climate change is affecting the country.
Last week, a leaked draft strategic plan revealed the Interior department's plans to open national public lands—including national monuments designated by past presidents—to drilling and other extractive development. The plan also includes selling public lands to housing developers and weakening bedrock environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act (ESA), all in the name of an “energy emergency.”
“Even in all these made up crises, the American public doesn’t want this,” said Chris Hill, CEO of the Conservation Lands Foundation. “The American people want and love their public lands.”
Attacks on public lands are deeply unpopular among Western voters. Seventy-two percent oppose removing protections for public lands to allow for development, 89 percent support keeping national monument designations in place, and 82 percent prefer building more housing within or close to existing communities rather than selling off public lands for housing.
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The American public needs to understand that you can’t just turn a science switch off and then turn it back on again.”
