What happened in Bears Ears is no exception. Under President Donald Trump, the government auctioned off millions of acres of public land to the fossil fuel industry, the Guardian newspaper says in the most comprehensive calculation yet of how much public land the government has given to oil and gas drillers. It is possible to clarify whether the land has been handed over. For the past 4 years.
President Trump opens up US land for oil and gas drilling
Lease sold for oil and gas
Provides oil and gas leases
Guardian graphics. Source: Wilderness Society Action Fund
President Trump opens up US land for oil and gas drilling
Lease sold for oil and gas
Provides oil and gas leases
Guardian graphics. Source: Wilderness Society Action Fund
President Trump opens up US land for oil and gas drilling
Guardian graphics. Source: Wilderness Society Action Fund
The U.S. government is supposed to be an impartial arbiter of how public lands are used, but President Trump has aligned his administration with former fossil fuel lobbyists and conservative activists. In many cases, the department sells access to these lands at rock-bottom prices, sites that are sacred to tribal communities, important to at-risk animals, and critical to preventing runaway climate change. .
A new study conducted by the Wilderness Society Action Fund and shared with the Guardian found:
Of the more than 600 million acres of U.S. public land, the Trump administration has leased 5.4 million acres, an area the size of New Jersey, to oil and gas companies. Lease drilling could equate to 4.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions and heat the planet as much as more than 1,051 coal-burning power plants. President Trump is lifting protections from some of the nation’s most ecologically sensitive places, from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. The Interior Department also leases 4.9 million acres of land in the Gulf of Mexico to drilling companies, which could have as much of an impact on the climate as putting more than 1 million additional cars on the road in a year. There is. If Trump wins another term, the lease could expand. The proposed public land plan makes a total of 50m acres available to drillers.
“Throughout his term, the president stripped protections from wild places that provide critical habitat for many plants and animals, clean water, and great opportunities for recreation and exploration,” the Nature Conservancy Action Fund says in a new report. It is explained in the book. “Once they are sold to the fossil fuel industry, sometimes for as little as $2 an acre, these lands become scarred by drilling rigs, roads, pipelines, and pollution where drilling takes place. Sho.”
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In December 2017, President Trump signed an executive order significantly reducing the size of Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah.Photo: George Fry/Getty Images
Interior Department spokesman Conor Swanson claimed the Trump administration had leased the least square footage of any administration since rental data was first collected in 1985, but did not respond to a request for the data. Ta.
In fact, the Trump administration provided nearly as many acres for drilling in four years (nearly 25 million acres) as the Obama administration did in eight years. The acreage that oil companies ended up leasing under the Trump administration was a fraction of the acreage offered, in part due to unfavorable fossil fuel markets, and rivals President Obama’s record.
The influence of industry-aligned pressure groups in Bears Ears exemplifies a broader trend under the Trump administration.
Patrick Gonzalez Rogers, executive director of the Bears Ears Tribal Federation, said that for the Hopi people, Bears Ears is “their church and their altar.” The Hopi and their allies tried to protect Bears Ears “as they would protect Notre Dame.”
But the government has sought to cater to a few special interests, including uranium mining company Energy Fuels and Utah think tank Sutherland Institute, which lobbied to shrink the monument in hopes of future mining opportunities. , took a strong stance against the opposition of Native Americans. .
Founded to “trumpet” conservative principles, Sutherland received more than $1 million from foundations associated with the Koch brothers, and millions more from other wealthy benefactors. The group is a member of a national policy network of influential conservative ideological groups, many of which advocate weakening federal environmental laws and transferring federal lands to state management.
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The outline of a human hand carved into the rock face of Bears Ears.Photo: Photo by George Fry/Getty Images
In 2016 and 2017, he led a concerted pressure campaign against the Bears Ears monument, bombarding the press with quotes and op-eds, releasing videos, and organizing rallies in Washington. Sutherland’s staff even drafted language for approval from the Utah Legislature asking President Trump to eliminate protections in Bears Ears.
Public records obtained by the Guardian show that Sutherland maintained steady communication with Home Office appointees throughout 2017, exchanging talking points, research and press releases about Bears Ears, and at times providing internal feedback on future decisions. He also said he was able to obtain information. “This is amazing; thank you for sharing!!” a Home Affairs appointee wrote in an email in August 2017 in response to Sutherland’s report attacking the modern monument designation. Mr. Sutherland did not respond to requests for comment.
“The lobbyist-filled Trump administration hasn’t just cut corners and cut corners with oil-funded front groups,” says Jason O’Neill of the conservation group Western Values Project. Monuments and land protection. ”
In December 2017, Trump traveled to Utah to deliver a win to the conservative think tank world. Surrounded by Republican leaders and activists at the state Capitol, he announced the de facto decommissioning of the Bears Ears monument.
The Hopi Nation and four other tribes vowed to fight back, filing a lawsuit in federal court that is still ongoing.
But Bears Ears was just the beginning for America’s public lands.
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At Bears Ears, Native Americans carved petroglyphs on what is now known as newspaper stone.Photo: Larry Hulst/Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images
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