By David Jenkins, President of Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship The Trump administration recently published a proposed rule that rolls back commonsense oil and gas bonding reforms designed to protect taxpayers from bearing the enormous cost of orphaned well cleanup. Without adequate bonding, industry bad actors who abandon wells after extracting the oil and gas, along with all the profit, get away with breaking a key condition of their permit and pawning off the plugging and clean-up expenses onto you, me and every other American taxpayer. By rolling back these bonding requirements, the Trump administration is siding with the worst players in the oil and gas industry — cheats and scammers — over hard-working taxpayers. Read the entire op-ed. If you hit a paywall, click here to read...
The Trump administration is moving ahead with plans to rescind a quarter-century-old rule that blocked logging and other development on national forest lands, drawing the ire of environmentalists nationwide By Associated Press ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The Trump administration announced Tuesday it is moving ahead with plans to rescind a quarter-century-old rule that blocked logging, road building and other development on national forest lands, drawing the ire of environmentalists nationwide. The U.S. Forest Service is filing a proposal that would scrap the so called roadless rule adopted in the last days of Bill Clinton’s presidency in 2001. The agency described the rule as a one-size-fits-all restriction that has frustrated land managers and served as a barrier to reducing wildfire risks in the nation’s forests. “Our forests can’t afford another decade of inaction. Across the country, we’ve watched preventable conditions — overgrown stands, insect outbreaks and disease — turn healthy landscapes into tinderboxes,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a statement. Read the rest of the...
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins just announced that the U.S. Forest Service has filed a proposed rule to “rescind in its entirety” the national 2001 Roadless Area Conversation Rule. CRS President David Jenkins criticized the move, saying: “This is one of the most boneheaded and fiscally irresponsible actions this administration could take. The agency doesn’t have the budget to take care of the 368,000 miles of roads already riddling our national forests. In fact, there is currently a $10.8 billion maintenance backlog.” Jenkins also challenged Rollin’s claim that the Roadless Rule “exacerbates” wildfire risks, adding: “The truth is that roadless forests are our greatest defense against wildfire. Not only are old growth forests naturally resistant to fire, but 90% of all wildfires in the U.S. occur within a half mile of a road. Any claims to the contrary are demonstrably false.“ “We need to call this out for what it is, one giant taxpayer funded subsidy for commercial logging operations that are otherwise uneconomical. This will only worsen our national debt and end up fleecing American taxpayers out the wazoo.” Jenkins said. “It is swamp politics at its very worse.” Speaking about America’s great forests and mountains, Ronald Reagan once said, “This is our patrimony. This is what we leave to our children. And our great moral responsibility is to leave it to them either as we found it or better than we found it.” Reagan understood that the responsible stewardship of our natural wealth and fiscal health were core tenets of conservatism. Secretary Rollins would do well to remember that and abandon her ill-conceived effort to roll back the...
If you’re a homeowner, drive a car, eat food, or basically just exist, there’s no escaping the worsening trend of sky-high energy prices in the U.S. If you live in Florida, the problem is more acute and especially during the warmer months when air conditioner use is much higher than the national average. A recent interview with public radio station WFSU in Tallahassee provided a perfect venue for CRS President David Jenkins to explain the ins and outs of energy production in Florida and how the unchecked monopoly power of utilities aren’t serving the interests of electricity consumers in the state. Listen to the...
By Joshua Spodek Most environmentalists that I know of consider themselves progressive or liberal. They propose solutions that increase regulation and grow government, often in the style of the New Deal. Their role models are generally also progressive and liberal. They present conservatives as opponents, even enemies, sometimes evil. They consider them interested in themselves and profit, not caring who suffers for it. Over and over, they say about conservatives, “They don’t care.” Meanwhile, they pollute as much as anyone. They fund future extraction, companies that extract and pollute, their politicians, and lobbyists promoting more. I don’t think they actually talk to conservatives. They project their preconceptions onto them and treat them as straw men. David Jenkins helps lead a conservative group that promotes stewardship. I suspect many environmentalists would consider the combination impossible, wondering if it’s a front group. What do you expect? Could conservative values promote decreasing pollution, depletion, plunder, and misappropriating nature? Listen to the...
