Remember the old adage waste not, want not? Apparently, some in Congress have forgotten it. There is a strong push–fueled by the oil and gas industry–to reverse a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rule that requires oil and gas companies to be responsible and capture the natural gas that they extract from our public lands. The rule was needed because these companies have been cutting corners and wasting a lot of gas through flaring and leaks. Not only does wasted gas represent a big source of air pollution, no royalties are paid on a resource that belongs to all Americans. Any true conservative should support efforts to prevent waste, especially waste that is costing taxpayers a bundle. Unfortunately, some lawmakers in Congress who profess to be conservative are trying to repeal the BLM rule through the Congressional Review Act (CRA). The House of Representatives already bowed to the oil and gas lobby by passing a CRA resolution rolling back the rule. Now, this issue is before the Senate. CRS maintains that there is nothing conservative about waste or pollution and that BLM’s methane waste rule should remain in place. You can hear CRS board member Steve Bonowski from Colorado discuss the issue here, Western Officials Push U.S. Senators to Keep BLM Methane Rules, and CRS President David Jenkins discusses it here: Conservatives Defend BLM Natural Gas Waste Rule. Background The BLM, which oversees oil and gas development on nearly 250 million acres of public lands, is required to prevent the waste of public resources that belong to all Americans. To fulfill this mandate, over the past few years the agency...
For anyone who cares about safeguarding our environment, many of President Trump’s past statements have been worrisome, as have the people he put in charge of transitioning to a new administration. This makes it particularly important to have thoughtful, stewardship-minded leaders heading up the Department of Interior and EPA. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Interior, Congressman Ryan Zinke, is worthy of support. He is an advocate for America’s public lands who opposes efforts to turn those lands over to states and special interests. He boycotted the GOP convention because the platform was anti-public land. Zinke clearly meets the threshold of someone who cares about safeguarding our natural heritage. The same is not the case with Trump’s nominee for EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt. As Attorney General of Oklahoma Pruitt amassed a long record of opposing EPA and the environmental laws the agency is responsible for enforcing, including suing the agency 13 times. Moreover, Pruitt always seems to come down on the side of the polluter rather than the environment and the broader public interest. This tendency tracks closely with his ties to regulated industries, including donations to his campaigns and other endeavors. Putting Pruitt in charge of EPA would be akin to putting a fox in charge of a henhouse. For those reasons, Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship supports the Ryan Zinke for Secretary of Interior and strongly opposes the nomination of Scott Pruitt to head EPA. The Pruitt nomination falls short of the standard set by past Republican presidents to nominate EPA heads who believe in the agency’s mission and are committed to its important work. Background EPA is a...
Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship (CRS) applauds the designation of Bears Ears and Gold Butte National Monuments. The President’s use of the Antiquities Act was entirely appropriate and in keeping with the Act’s original intent. Affording these public lands extra protection is genuinely conservative, and that is true irrespective of which president makes the designations. “Bears Ears and Gold Butte are both rich in natural and cultural treasures that need to be protected from existing threats, they are exactly the type of places Theodore Roosevelt’s Antiquities Act was designed to protect,” said CRS President David Jenkins. “Whether looting, vandalism, or a host of other illegal activities, the threats to these important parts of America’s heritage are ongoing and serious. Preserving them is, as President Reagan would say, our great moral responsibility,” Jenkins added. It is important to point out that the Antiquities Act, which gives the president authority to proclaim monuments, is a Republican invention. It was crafted by a conservative Republican, passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by Republican, President Theodore Roosevelt. Recognizing that Congress was often incapable of acting quickly enough to protect artifacts or natural areas from threats, those Republicans gave the president authority to safeguard these places through monument designation. “Congressman, and notorious monument opponent, Rob Bishop and his cohorts in the Utah delegation are pitching a fit about these designations—especially Bears Ears—as expected, but these are the same radical folks who want America to give away its public lands, and who are hell-bent on totally upending the Theodore Roosevelt conservation ethic that has served our nation well for more than a century,”...
Republican presidents—including Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan—have a long tradition of contributing to our great natural endowment of parks, forests, wildlife refuges, national monuments, and other public lands. They understood that these lands, your lands, are an essential part of who we are as a people, and that protecting them is both conservative and patriotic. To help make sure that tradition continues, CRS has launched a campaign urging President-elect Donald Trump to also make safeguarding America’s public lands a top priority. To find out more, please visit our campaign...
On the week of its centennial anniversary (August 25) the National Park System, along with the state of Maine and every American, received an 87,500-acre gift of beautiful Northwoods forest that President Obama just proclaimed as Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. The land was generously donated to the American people by Burt’s Bees co-founder Roxanne Quimby and her family foundation, Elliotsville Plantation, Inc. A guarantee to safeguard the land in perpetuity was a condition of the gift, and President Obama relied on his authority under the Antiquities Act–a law established by Theodore Roosevelt–to secure the deal. The gift also includes a $20 million endowment to support planning, infrastructure and maintenance of new monument. This designation is particularly fitting to coincide with the National Park System Centennial. It has a lot in common with another Maine national monument designation that occurred just a month before the National Park Service was established. President Woodrow Wilson, responding to a similar private land donation and local initiative, created Sieur de Monts National Monument, which we all now know and love as Acadia National Park. “Establishing the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument allows the region and its economy to benefit from a remarkable land gift and monetary endowment, and on this 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, it shows the same vision and generosity that made Acadia National Park possible more than a century ago,” said CRS President David Jenkins. The Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument is next to Maine’s spectacular 209,644-acre Baxter State Park, home of Maine’s highest peak, Mt. Katahdin (5,267 feet), and the Appalachian Trail’s northern terminus....
