Trump administration officials dismissed benefits of national monuments

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post

In a quest to shrink national monuments last year, senior Interior Department officials dismissed evidence that these public lands boosted tourism and spurred archaeological discoveries, according to documents the department released this month and retracted a day later.

The thousands of pages of email correspondence chart how Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and his aides instead tailored their survey of protected sites to emphasize the value of logging, ranching, and energy development that would be unlocked if they were not designated as national monuments. Comments that the department’s Freedom of Information Act officers made in the documents show that they sought to keep some of the references out of public view because they were “revealing [the] strategy” behind the review.

Presidents can establish national monuments in federal land or waters if they determine that cultural, historical or natural resources are imperiled. In April, President Trump signed an executive order instructing Zinke to review 27 national monuments established over a period of 21 years, arguing that his predecessors had overstepped their authority in placing these large sites off-limits to development. Trump has already massively reduced two of Utah’s largest national monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, and has not ruled out altering others.

The new documents show that as Zinke conducted his four-month review, Interior officials rejected material that would justify keeping protections in place and sought out evidence that could buttress the case for unraveling them.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/trump-administration-officials-dismissed-benefits-of-national-monuments/2018/07/23/5b8b1666-8b9a-11e8-a345-a1bf7847b375_story.html

[bucolic_frolic]

1. WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED?

Cost-Benefit analyses can be juiced any way you want them to go, and this doesn't even qualify as a legitimate tweaking, it's a biased travesty and ILLEGITIMATE because of the stolen election with Russian help.

[underpants]

2. Oops. Released docs by mistake.

[jeffreyi]

3. Evil fucks.

[riversedge]

4. America's heritage means nothing to the Zinke-Trump vile types!

......The new documents show that as Zinke conducted his four-month review, Interior officials rejected material that would justify keeping protections in place and sought out evidence that could buttress the case for unraveling them.

[Snellius]

5. Odd that the government has to conceal everything they do.

Especially one that claims its "populist", out to protect "the forgotten people". They say it will create jobs. But near full employment, who will fill these jobs? Who's always filled these jobs? Immigrants?

[appalachiablue]

6. Grifters

[Kensan]

7. Never ceases to amaze what these cretins stand for....

Over the weekend I finally started to watch Ken Burns' National Parks documentary. I only had it recorded for 18 months or so. It's not a shock to know our country has had its share of assholes in government since the beginning. What is head scratching is that you hear the exact same arguments from 150 years ago when Yosemite and Yellowstone were first being discussed as areas to be protected.

I hope the ideas that ultimately won the day back in 1864, and ultimately resulted in our National Park system, will be victorious again. Alas, it's been reduced to hoping enough people come to their senses and understand we are all beneficiaries of these amazing places. They belong to all of us, and our children deserve to inherit these small portions of our country in as pristine condition as we can leave it.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. You know what is ironic?

Whenever there is a threat to close the government due to lack of appropriations (or where there IS an actual furlough and closure), the first thing the media seems to highlight are the National Parks. "Oh look - there's a gate in front of the entrance with a "closed" sign on it due to lack of funding" they will cry out, with cameras tailing frustrated tourists who came all the way there and it was "closed"....

It's always the things that people take for granted.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

9. Tell me, Cadet Spanky McBoneSpurs

Would this also include things like the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, you lying, draft-dodging, chicken-shit coward ?

[YOHABLO]

10. So now pristine national monuments will be open for land grabs by energy co.s and the rich.