Republican crusade against public land must end
Raúl M Grijalva
Friday 17 June 2016 07.00 EDT
Since taking over the majority in 2011, House Republicans have intensified their efforts to give away natural resources owned by the American people to a few special interests. From threatened and endangered wildlife to mineral resources to fisheries, Republicans have attempted to shift control and decision-making authority from federal agency stewards to states and localities – even those with a track record of short-sighted or irresponsible management.
Of all their efforts to rewrite American environmental laws, none has been more intense than the campaign to devolve oversight of federal public lands. Efforts to weaken the Antiquities Act, block commonsense conservation rules and force the expiration of the previously uncontroversial Land and Water Conservation Fund – which got a short lease of life last year – are among the lowlights of the Republican anti-public lands crusade.
This crusade has coincided with, and arguably lent legitimacy to, the rise of violent extremism on US public lands, which culminated in the recent illegal occupation of Malheur national wildlife refuge in Oregon by a group of armed militants ...
The most recent development in the ongoing battle for our public lands is the recent introduction of the badly misnamed Local Enforcement for Local Lands Act ... The bill’s authors would have you believe that federal law enforcement officers are agents of an overbearing, omnipresent Gestapo out to crush any expression of freedom or independence in the American west ...
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/17/congress-republicans-public-land-federal-states-bill
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