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Texas, which is among the states with the least amount of public land, is going on a land buying spree. In 2023, Texas voters approved a $1 billion fund to provide a permanent funding source for new state parks and natural areas. The Texas Tribune reports that those purchases are now underway, starting with a new Post Oak Ridge State Park and expanding the Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, both located in the "Texas Triangle" between Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas.
The parks are creating new hunting and recreation opportunities while also expanding the scope of conservation in the state.
“One of the exciting things is that landscape scale of conservation, where we're protecting now 10,000 acres,” said JJ Fleury with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Scientists are cataloging species and wetlands in the new parks to make sure facilities avoid the most sensitive areas.
The expansion of public land in Texas was spurred in part by the loss of a 1,800-acre state park south of Dallas in 2023. That park was on private land leased to the state. The owner, a private power company, terminated the lease and sold the land to a private developer to build a luxury housing project.
EPA goes all-in on science denial
Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to propose rescinding its own authority to regulate the pollution that causes climate change. That rule, the 16-year-old "endangerment finding," was based in science that found heat-trapping emissions from vehicles, power plants, and gas wells endangered public health by driving climate change.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin last week praised carbon dioxide, the primary driver of climate change, as "necessary for life." Robert Brulle, a visiting professor at Brown University, told The Hill that Zeldin's actions and words amount to full-on climate denial.
“Is Lee Zeldin a climate denier? Yes, I would say, by my considered professional opinion, as a person who studies climate obstruction and climate denial … yes, he’s a full-fledged climate denier,” Brulle said.
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These landscapes that maybe don’t have that same blast of scenic beauty that the national parks have, they serve as really important ecological places for different flora and fauna. These are landscapes that are on the edges of national parks and national forest and provide these really amazing wildlife corridors that are really important. So even if you look out on these places that look like an empty landscape, these are places that wildlife roam.”
