The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is hosting a hearing Tuesday on the maintenance needs of America’s national parks. The park maintenance backlog, a cause célèbre for some in Washington, DC, is being wielded as a political cudgel — and an excuse to under-resource public lands — by some of the most anti-park and anti-public lands politicians.

With the Senate taking up the issue, it is increasingly important to parse rhetoric from reality. Here’s the “political spin” you should be on the lookout for during the hearing:

Rhetoric: There is no more pressing challenge facing public lands than deferred maintenance at national parks

Reality: More Americans than ever are visiting America’s public lands, but Washington politicians are chronically underfunding our parks, monuments, wildlife refuges, and conservation lands. National forests, BLM lands, and wildlife refuges receive millions more visitors annually than national parks in the West. These visitors not only stimulate local economies, but the mere presence of public lands, and especially protected lands, is a draw for businesses and employees alike.

Singling out maintenance needs at national parks misses the forest for the trees, and misses a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make real, sustained investments into all American public lands. But the Trump administration’s priority is undercutting public lands, eliminating protections, and even selling oil drilling rights next to national parks and monuments.

The proposal pushed by President Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to address park maintenance may be a bigger threat to American public lands than the deferred maintenance itself. If the Trump administration gets its way, funding basic national park maintenance needs will become intertwined with more and more oil and gas development — drilling America’s conserved public lands, waters, and oceans to fill potholes and repair toilets inside national parks.

Rhetoric: National parks are facing an insurmountable $11.6 billion backlog in deferred maintenance

Reality: The oft-repeated $11.6 billion backlog in deferred maintenance sounds like an insurmountable total, indeed. The problem: it’s a massively inflated wishlist of all maintenance and construction needs at every national park. Is there park infrastructure in need of repair and replacement? Undoubtably. But the problem has been significantly overblown.

A review of the Park Service’s database found that only $1.3 billion — or about 10 percent of the total backlog — is serious enough for the agency to consider it a priority for necessary maintenance.

Addressing the deferred maintenance needs at our national parks is achievable. The U.S. government, like any good property manager, simply needs to provide adequate and predictable funding through the regular appropriations process. Congress took an important step with the 2018 omnibus spending bill which provided $139 million to help address the maintenance backlog at national parks, $50 million to address deferred maintenance issues on BLM lands, and $53 million to address the maintenance backlog at wildlife refuges.

Rhetoric: The promise of expanded energy development on public lands can pay for upkeep at national parks

Reality: The wealthiest nation in history should have the foresight not to destroy our grandchildren’s birthright in order to repave roads, fill potholes, and repair septic tanks.

But that’s precisely what the Trump administration and its allies in Congress are proposing by tying the national park maintenance backlog to increased energy revenues that might never arrive. The proposal under consideration — the National Park Restoration Act, introduced by Representative Mike Simpson and Senator Lamar Alexander and backed by Interior Secretary Zinke — only provides funds if energy revenues surpass a predetermined threshold, set at $7.8 billion for 2018 and rising to $9.4 billion by 2024.

Energy revenues swing dramatically and unpredictably from year to year depending on economics, global commodity prices, and private industry interest. Under the Trump administration “solution,” national parks would have received no funding to address maintenance needs over the past three years. And depending on a variety of economic factors, including the global price of oil, the bill may never generate any money at all for national parks.

This administration wants to ensure future drilling proposals are rubber stamped by using an argument they think nobody can argue with — “it’s for the parks.” But we should not have to fund park upkeep with unreliable and unstable revenues from energy development. We shouldn’t have to pray for higher prices at gasoline pumps in order to generate enough revenue to fund park maintenance, nor should park upkeep be paid for with more and more drilling and mining on America’s parks and public lands.

Rhetoric: Because of the maintenance backlog, our nation should no longer protect at-risk public lands

Reality: Maintaining our national parks and guaranteeing America’s parks and public lands aren’t permanently lost to development are not mutually exclusive. Any investment into America’s public lands infrastructure must provide consistent and predictable funding to ensure all parks and public lands have sufficient staffing; that wildlife refuges, national forests, and other valuable recreation lands have resources for basic upkeep needs; and that land managers have the flexibility and funding to protect and enhance recreation access.

Topping the list of any policy discussions about park infrastructure must be the Land & Water Conservation Fund, or LWCF. LWCF is the primary source of funding to create, protect, and enhance access to local, state, and national parks. The program is not about adding a whole bunch of land — in fact, the total acreage of U.S. public lands has decreased in recent years — but rather enhancing recreation access onto conservation lands, wildlife refuges, national forests, and other public lands. It’s about guaranteeing important lands in or near national parks and battlefields don’t get sold off for trophy home development. And, it’s about building new community ballfields, hiking trails, and public swimming holes.

Rhetoric: Privatizing services at America’s national parks would improve visitor experience and reduce maintenance costs

Reality: The Trump administration, at Secretary Zinke’s urging, is looking for opportunities to privatize services at national parks, including handing national park campsites to private concessionaires. Privatized park services are likely to lead to higher prices being passed along to American families.

Private concessionaires have a lousy track record keeping up with the upkeep of park facilities. Companies operating inside national parks are currently responsible for $389 million in deferred national park maintenance. And concessionaires are under no obligation to operate park facilities with American interest in mind.

Look no further than Delaware North, one of the world’s largest concessionaires. Delaware North has claimed a trademark on various landmarks within Yosemite National Park — including the Ahwahnee, Curry Village, and Wawona Hotel . The company demanded the National Park Service pay tens of millions to continue using the century-old names after losing the concessions contract. The company even trademarked the phrase “Yosemite National Park” and the image of Half Dome, the park’s iconic logo.

The ugly dispute is still playing out in court, where the U.S. Justice Department is opposing Delaware North’s trademark claims.

Reality: The Trump administration is trying to undermine our national parks

If there’s one thing that should become clear after Tuesday’s hearing, it’s that President Trump and Secretary Zinke are not serious about funding America’s public lands or addressing the maintenance backlog. They’ve pushed for nothing but budget cuts since taking office. And now President Trump and Secretary Zinke want to incentivize more drilling at the doorstep of our parks and protected lands without even guaranteeing a penny for park maintenance needs.

Congress already has all the tools it needs to fully fund our parks and address the maintenance backlog. Our parks just need leaders in Washington who are willing to stand up and ensure all of America’s public lands have the resources they need for the next hundred years.

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The Trump administration wants you to think America’s national parks are crumbling. They’re not. was originally published in Westwise on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The U.S. land management agencies charged with protecting Western communities from wildfire have been stuck in a destructive feedback loop:

• Fighting massive wildfires drains land agency budgets.
• With no money left to fight fires, agency leaders are forced to take money away from critical programs (often called “fire borrowing”).
• Important projects like watershed restoration, hazardous fuels reduction, trail improvements, and forest health are delayed or cancelled altogether.
• The following year, again, massive wildfires drain land agency budgets. Rinse and repeat.

After years of working to address the problem of fire borrowing, which has kneecapped the Forest Service and the Interior Department for years, Congress finally passed a so-called “fire fix” through the Omnibus spending bill. The fix, signed by President Trump last week, has long been sought by Western members of Congress from both sides of the aisle (and had previously been supported by the Obama administration).

This is, undoubtedly, a big and important victory for Western communities. It’s no secret that wildfire has become an increasing problem in the West — a worry that’s top-of-mind for many in the region staring down the barrel of another nasty summer of wildfire. A combination of a warming climate, longer fire seasons, the century-long practice of suppressing all fires, and more people living near fire-prone areas has increased the cost and complexity of fighting fire.

Finally, the Forest Service and the Interior Department will have the flexibility to pay for wildfire suppression without having to take precious resources from other critical programs — a phenomenon that’s happened over a dozen times since 2002. As importantly, it will free up the Forest Service to reverse a disturbing trend that’s forced the agency to spend an ever-growing portion of its budget fighting wildfire. In 1995, fighting wildfire consumed 16 percent of the Forest Service’s budget. The percentage has ballooned in only two decades, now consuming over half of the Forest Service’s budget.

In these hyper-partisan times, it can be frustrating to watch how difficult it is to get even the most common-sense policies passed. A 2015 analysis by the Center for Western Priorities found that the congressional proposal to fix fire borrowing had stronger bipartisan support than any other natural resources bill before Congress. Statements from both sides of the aisle showed how that support finally paid off in the omnibus bill.

Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO):

“This bipartisan fix transforms and modernizes the Forest Service’s capacity to restore forest health and mitigate and fight wildfires. It allows the Forest Service to complete the entirety of its mission, without being undermined by the pressures of fire.”

Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO):

“Our provision will ensure the Forest Service has the necessary funding for cleanup and prevention efforts that will help reduce the amount of catastrophic wildfires the Forest Service has to fight.”

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR):

“Common sense has finally prevailed when it comes to how the Forest Service pays to fight record-breaking forest fires that devastate homes and communities in Oregon and the West.”

Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID):

“This long-overdue provision will enable agencies to fight forest fires like the disasters they truly are and stop the debilitating practice of fire borrowing,”

The “fire fix” offers a ray of hope that our leaders can still solve real problems by passing bills on a bipartisan basis.

For more information, visit westernpriorities.org. Sign up for Look West to get daily public lands and energy news sent to your inbox, or subscribe to Go West, Young Podcast.

A big win for the West was originally published in Westwise on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Congress is set to vote on a new spending bill that will keep the government open through the end of September. The $1.3 trillion omnibus spending package — the first long-term spending bill of its kind during the Trump presidency — is a significant rebuke to the austere cuts proposed by President Trump and his Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to America’s parks, public lands, and key conservation initiatives.

Just last week, Secretary Zinke was in front of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, defending his proposal to axe 14 percent from the Interior Department’s budget, which would have virtually eliminated important conservation programs like the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), and significantly decreased funding to the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and other important land management agencies.

Congressional appropriators, however, wisely rejected Secretary Zinke’s proposals to hamstring America’s public lands, and instead are providing increased funding for Interior Department programs for 2018. The omnibus spending bill includes:

• A funding increase of $270 million above 2017 levels for the National Park Service, including an increase of $139 million to help address the maintenance backlog at national parks
• A funding increase for the Bureau of Land Management of $79 million, including $50 million to address deferred maintenance issues on BLM lands
• A funding increase of $75 million for the Fish and Wildlife Service, including an increase of $53 million to address the maintenance backlog at wildlife refuges
• $60 million specifically set aside for conservation activities related to the greater sage-grouse
• An increase in funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund — from $400 million in 2017 to $425 million in 2018

There are few programs more demonstrative of the disconnect between the Trump administration and Congress than the Land and Water Conservation Fund. LWCF, which is one of America’s most important conservation programs, provides key funds to protect parks and public lands, and enhance access onto lands for hunting, fishing, biking, hiking, and other recreation.

Secretary Zinke had proposed a 98 percent cut to the program. By disavowing the secretary’s proposal to effectively zero out LWCF, both Republicans and Democrats are sending a message: Congress understands that the American public expects the U.S. government to protect public lands and enhance access. In making the case for LWCF, congressional appropriators wrote, “The Committees believe increasing access to our public lands for hunting, fishing, and other recreational activities is important.”

These funds will help to ensure that private inholdings within national parks won’t be sold off for trophy home development, that new access points to rivers and streams can be built, and that U.S. land managers have the flexibility and funds to protect recreation lands.

While this bill provides much needed funding for conservation, the work is by no means done. The Land and Water Conservation Fund is set to expire at the end of September and if Congress fails to act, these important funds could be lost forever. Luckily, there are few programs with such widespread support across the political spectrum.

But the clock is ticking.

Congress rebukes the Trump/Zinke proposal to disembowel park and conservation budgets was originally published in Westwise on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has turned his back on Montana, a state he represented in Congress until last year. The latest example is his proposed 2019 Interior Department budget, where the secretary proposes eliminating virtually all funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). The premise of LWCF is simple: the United States invests a small portion (up to $900 million annually) of the revenue generated from offshore oil drilling into land conservation, outdoor recreation, and public lands access.

For any good politician from Montana, LWCF is like motherhood and apple pie. It’s one of those rare bipartisan programs that works because its impacts are widely felt by anyone who values protecting and enhancing access for hunting, fishing, hiking, and camping on America’s public lands. And in Montana, that’s virtually everyone.

Sen. Steve Daines, (R-MT):

“LWCF was created in the spirit of reinvesting the revenues from the sale of our national resources into future resources for all Americans — asset for asset.”

Sen. Jon Tester, (D-MT):

“I applaud every effort to increase recreational opportunities for Montanans and this money will go a long way towards doing that. LWCF is a critical boost to Montana’s economy, our western way of life, and our outdoor heritage.”

Rep. Greg Gianforte, (R-MT):

“I will also fight for the permanent reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund to help preserve and expand access for Montanans to hunt, fish, and recreate on public lands.”

Gov. Steve Bullock, (D-MT):

“[LWCF] has ensured that generations of Montanans had access to public lands and waterways that otherwise would be locked up. Montanans demand more from Washington.”

In today’s overheated political environment, you’d be hard-pressed to find a program with stronger and more intense bipartisan support than LWCF. But Interior Secretary Zinke — who is known to harbor future political aspirations in Montana — apparently missed the memo. He’s put forward a budget proposal that effectively zeroes out LWCF.

If Congress was to implement Secretary Zinke’s proposal — an improbability given the broad, bipartisan support for LWCF — important conservation projects would go unfunded, recreation areas could be lost to subdivisions, trophy homes could be built inside national parks like Zion and Glacier, and funds won’t be available to open up new hunting and fishing access on public lands. What’s more, Secretary Zinke’s proposal would leave states and local communities in the lurch, taking away a critical source of money for local recreation facilities, state parks, working forests, and wildlife protection programs.

The impacts of Secretary Zinke’s proposal will be felt especially hard right in his backyard in Montana, where important land conservation projects will go unfunded because of the secretary’s shortsightedness. Take, as an example, that proposal to permanently protect 2,623 acres along the Upper Missouri National Wild and Scenic River, running through Montana’s Upper Missouri River National Monument. The lands along the river — a world class fishing and hunting destination — are threatened by development. About $2 million from LWCF would ensure the lands and waters are protected and the Upper Missouri River National Monument isn’t permanently diminished for future generations. But the project is still awaiting LWCF funds for its completion.

The secretary knows his position on LWCF is untenable. When questioned about his support for LWCF last year by his Montana colleague, Senator Tester, the Interior secretary said, “As you know, I’ve long been a supporter of the LWCF program. You and I agree on that. Overall, the program has done great things for our country.” Just this week, after questioned about Secretary Zinke’s proposal to eviscerate LWCF, an Interior Department spokesperson inexplicably claimed that “the secretary remains supportive of LWCF.”

Secretary Zinke could have put his money where his mouth is. He could have proposed full permanent funding for the program. He could have directed his agency to identify and carry out important land conservation projects that protect America’s parks and enhance access onto America’s public lands.

Unfortunately, he revealed his true position: Secretary Zinke is no champion for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Interior Secretary Zinke wants to defund a vital land conservation program he supposedly supports was originally published in Westwise on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

With news that Cliven Bundy and his two sons, Ammon and Ryan, are getting off scot-free for their leading role in a dangerous 2014 armed standoff against public land managers in Nevada, it is now up to Secretary Ryan Zinke and the Interior Department to ensure lawbreakers and tax cheats — no matter their political leanings — are held accountable.

The conspiracy and assault trial against the scofflaw ranchers was dismissed this week after the prosecution bungled the case so badly that the judge said she had no choice but to set the the militants free. Now Cliven, Ammon, and Ryan are heading home on a technicality and fully intend to continue illegally grazing their cows on U.S. public lands without paying American taxpayers for the right to do so.

The deadbeat ranching family, who claim the American public doesn’t actually own our public lands, and doesn’t even recognize the federal government, has chosen not to pay a nominal grazing fee for the right to run cattle on U.S. public lands for decades. They currently owe U.S. taxpayers over $1.3 million in back fees and fines, a number which increases by the year.

The Interior Department now has a responsibility to shut down the Bundy’s grazing operation on public lands. They can graze on their private property, but they’ll need to pay up to run cows on public lands. No business in the country would be allowed to operate with over a million dollars in back taxes — the Bundy’s ranching business should be no different.

Early indications from the Interior Department, however, are that Secretary Zinke intends to let lawbreaking continue unmitigated. His press secretary told reporters on Monday, “we are confident that a new leaf has turned over and that all parties will go forward in a neighborly manner.” By letting the deadbeat ranchers continue flaunting the law and ripping off taxpayers, it seems the secretary is less a good neighbor and more the Bundys’ doormat.

Welcome to the Bundy administration

The secretary might be a bit smitten over Cliven Bundy and his boys — like Zinke, they pretend to be everyman cowboys, champions for ranchers across the West — but they’re a terrible reflection of real Western ranchers. With almost zero exceptions, ranchers who graze theirs cows on public lands are law-abiding citizens working hand-in-glove with U.S. public lands managers. In 2016, of the 16,000 ranchers who run livestock on public lands, only 285 had bills that were past due. That’s a delinquency rate of less than two percent. Fewer than one percent of public lands ranchers had bills that were 60 days past due.

If Secretary Zinke is committed to being a good neighbor, he should hold all ranchers to the same standard. The Bundy family shouldn’t get special treatment when thousands of others are following the law. A good start would be confiscating and selling off the Bundy cattle to pay down their bill to taxpayers.

Secretary Zinke must enforce the law, confiscate Bundy’s illegal cows was originally published in Westwise on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Utah Congressman Rob Bishop, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, has made no secrets about his disdain for America’s foundational conservation laws.

On the Endangered Species Act: “I would be happy to invalidate [it].”

On the Antiquities Act: “It is the most evil act ever invented.”

On the Land and Water Conservation Fund: it is a “slush fund” and we should instead “plow some money back into [the oil and gas industry] to make sure that it’s there.”

(See the bottom of this post for for a summary of each law and its importance to American conservation.)

Even though these positions are extremely unpopular with voters across the West and the American public, Congressman Bishop has built his political career proudly working to undermine national public lands and weakening or invalidating a slew of environmental laws.

That’s why it was so bizarre when the House Natural Resources Committee personally attacked a Washington Post reporter for simply writing a story about Rep. Bishop’s agenda. Darryl Fears, a reporter with more than three decades in the news business, published a piece about the congressman’s work on the Endangered Species Act. The article is summarized by the story’s headline:

Fears is reporting on the five pieces of legislation (HR 717, HR 3131, HR 1274, HR 2603, HR 424) that Rep. Bishop has moved through his committee to accomplish the stated goal of defanging and, ultimately, “invalidating” the Endangered Species Act.

Rather than owning his agenda, Rep. Bishop and his staff at the House Natural Resources Committee decided to attack Fears and his reporting. In its weekly email blast — The Source — the committee doesn’t dispute the accuracy of Fears’ story, but nonetheless accuses him of “fervently [swallowing] the tired shticks of the radical Left.”

Fellow reporters immediately came to Fears’ defense. NBC’s Chuck Todd — host of Meet the Press — responded on Twitter:

Chuck Todd on Twitter

I encourage media criticism, especially constructive criticism... What's sad is when it's done as some sort of cheap character assassination. Come on, paid political professionals, you are better than this https://t.co/CslKPegPDi

It’s a troubling turn of events when reporters can’t write about the activities of our own government without risk of reprisal. But when your agenda is so deeply unpopular, it’s a lot easier to exclaim “Fake News!” rather than argue for why your ideas — and the policies you’re pushing — are worthy of consideration.

The foundations of American conservation

• The Endangered Species Act was signed into law by President Nixon to provide protections for species nearing extinction. The act is responsible for saving humpback whales, grizzly bears, bald eagles, California condors and numerous other species from extinction.
• The Antiquities Act, signed into law by President Teddy Roosevelt, has protected many of America’s prized national parks and monuments, including the Grand Canyon, Acadia, Arches, Olympic, and dozens of others.
• The Land and Water Conservation Fund, passed during President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration, invests royalties from offshore oil drilling back into land protections. LWCF is the most important funding source to provide recreation access and protect lands within national parks, forests and other public lands.

House committee chairman attacks reporter for doing his job was originally published in Westwise on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

*After publishing this post on Friday morning, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch announced that President Trump would take Secretary Zinke’s guidance and significantly cut protections for Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. Here is another in a long line of examples where Secretary Zinke and the president are axing land protections in service of developers.*

More than six months into Secretary Ryan Zinke’s tenure at the Interior Department, we’re getting a clear picture of what a Zinke Doctrine looks like: serving oil and gas companies is a welcomed blessing, while serving the public and our parks is a burden.

Virtually every major decision that the secretary has made fits neatly into this scheme. His department is proactively gutting rules on the oil and gas industry, leasing vast swaths of national public lands, and slicing the rates oil and gas companies pay taxpayers. At the same time, Secretary Zinke is putting up barriers to conservation and hiking fees for the public to access parks and public lands.

Few weeks offer a more clear and cohesive summary of what the Zinke Doctrine looks like in practice.

First, on Tuesday, the National Park Service proposed a controversial plan to more than double entrance fees into the most popular national parks — from $30 to $70 — under the guise of addressing the multi-billion dollar national park maintenance backlog.

While the plan will undoubtedly price many Americans out of a summer vacation to places like Glacier or Rocky Mountain National Parks, a Washington Post analysis points out how extremely inadequate the proposal is for addressing unfunded park maintenance needs. The national parks maintenance backlog is currently measured at $11.9 billion; the Zinke proposal would generate an estimated $70 million annually.

Hiking access fees is all the more troubling given the fact that Secretary Zinke has actively pushed for severe budget cuts to national parks, wildlife refuges, and other conservation lands. In fact, the Interior Department has proposed slicing $300 million annually from the National Park Service budget — nearly six times what the secretary hopes to generate through access fee hikes.

Meanwhile this week, Secretary Zinke has proudly and loudly pounded his chest as the Interior Department opens vast swaths of national public lands to energy drillers, while proactively reducing safeguards placed on private companies.

On Tuesday, Secretary Zinke announced a plan to sell off 77 million acres of public waters in the Gulf of Mexico — the largest in U.S. history.

Despite Secretary Zinke’s braggadocio, industry experts explain that there is not an appetite among oil companies to vastly expand their operations. A story in the Houston Chronicle explains:

In a report Tuesday, the research firm IHS Markit said that the world’s biggest oil companies have divested offshore holdings and become less active in acquiring new tracts. Overall, IHS Markit said, reduced spending on oil and gas exploration offshore has limited the number of quality oil and gas fields available for acquisition, through either outright sales or mergers.

This does not mean that the secretary’s policy decision is insignificant; on the contrary, any lease sold in the Gulf will “benefit” from heavily reduced royalty rates. A decision made this past summer decreased U.S. taxpayers’ share from drilling offshore from 18.75 percent to 12.5 percent. Experts have raised red flags about this rate cut because oil and gas royalties — first set during the 1920s — already fail to maximize taxpayer returns. The surprising rate cut reversed the royalty rate set by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne during President George W. Bush’s term.

On the heels of the Gulf leasing announcement, Secretary Zinke announced his intention to vastly increase the pace and scale of drilling in the wildlife-rich National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Instead of working to strike a balance between development and conservation — an Obama-era plan opened about half of the reserve to drilling, while protecting the other half — Secretary Zinke plans to throw all caution to the wind.

As a cap to Secretary Zinke’s week, he issued the long-awaited “Energy Burdens Report.” The report is a summary of the various rules and safeguards on oil and gas companies that the Interior Department intends to roll back.

Secretary Zinke’s rollbacks are a long list of oil industry priorities: remove limits on the waste of methane pollution, lift transparency requirements on drilling chemicals, undercut planning reforms, open up at-risk species habitat to industrial activities, and increase oil and gas access onto national monuments and wildlife refuges.

The “Energy Burdens Report” is a companion to Secretary Zinke’s secret national monuments report delivered over the summer to President Trump. The report recommended unprecedented changes to undercut at least ten national monuments, including unprotecting a million or more acres across the Western U.S. valued for outdoor recreation, hunting and fishing, cultural heritage, and wildlife protection.

Secretary Zinke desperately wants the American public to believe that he is a Teddy Roosevelt Republican — passionate about conserving, while responsibly using America’s lands. He’s not.

The Zinke Doctrine, articulated through the secretary’s actions, is anathema to President Roosevelt, who famously said,

“Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us.”

Nothing in Secretary Zinke’s tenure lives up to this lofty aspiration.

The Zinke Doctrine was originally published in Westwise on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

At a time when Westerners are feeling less than confident about the federal government’s commitment to respecting and protecting our outdoor way of life, we are increasingly looking to our state governments to fill the leadership void. Enter the Center for Western Priorities’ Western States Conservation Scorecard, which takes a close look at proactive, state-based conservation policies with a concentration on what Western states are doing well.

While news in recent years has focused on some state lawmakers attacking America’s public lands, we’ve too often lost sight of the proactive, pro-conservation, and pro-public lands policies successfully being passed through Western states. The Western States Conservation Scorecard ranks state policies on public lands access, outdoor recreation, and responsible energy development. It illuminates best practices and gaps in state-level public lands policies to highlight where Western states are demonstrating leadership and where they can improve in the coming years.

Colorado topped the scorecard, ranking as the first or second place state in all three categories and outpacing the other states in the overall score. Montana had the second highest scorecard total and led all states in access to public lands. Nevada landed in the middle of the pack, just behind Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico. Idaho and Arizona received the lowest rankings among the eight Western states.

As “laboratories of democracy” states are well-positioned to build the culture and economy that protects and enhances America’s public lands. Western states are already leading the way with effective state policies and regulations often being replicated by other states and the federal government:

• Colorado’s successful methane waste rules provided a roadmap for similar rules implemented by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to reduce methane pollution from oil and gas development — and ensure companies capture natural gas, rather than wasting it away.
• Montana’s gold standard stream access law serves as a model for other Western states — it constitutionally declares all rivers in the state public. Boaters and fishermen are free to boat through private lands, wade in streambeds, and walk along waterways on private land all the way up to the high water mark.
• After Offices of Outdoor Recreation opened in Utah and Colorado to increase the visibility of a state’s outdoor recreation economy — serving as hubs for planning and advocacy — Montana followed the lead establishing an Office of Outdoor Recreation in 2017.
• Colorado passed a first-in-the-nation state Public Lands Day in 2016, which was replicated one-year later by passing the Public Lands Day in Nevada bill.

• Wyoming became the first state in 2010 to require disclosure of hydraulic fracking chemicals used during oil and gas drilling. Since then, a number of Western states and the U.S. government have adopted chemical disclosure rules of varying strengths.

No one state does everything perfectly, and not every solution works for every state, but what is clear is that Western states have a lot to offer and learn from one another.

Read the full report, and learn more about state-level lands and energy policy, here.

States step up to lead on conservation and public lands policy in the Trump era was originally published in Westwise on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has been all over the news in recent weeks — and it hasn’t been the kind of media attention politicians crave. Reports (here, here, here, here, here, and here) highlight the secretary’s questionable use of private charter flights and his unethical — and possibly illegal — habit of mixing politics with his official job as Interior Secretary.

Secretary Zinke has tried to cultivate an image of the hardened cowboy, more comfortable wrangling bulls in Montana than schmoozing donors at fancy fundraisers. Sometimes a politician’s image doesn’t align with his (or her) personality and priorities. Since joining the Trump administration in February, we know of at least 7 fundraisers or political events the secretary has attended at high-end resort destinations. The Interior Department has provided no receipts or evidence that Secretary Zinke repaid taxpayers for his government-funded flights to these locations.

For those of us not lucky enough to travel in style and dine with America’s wealthy elite, we can at least live vicariously through Secretary Zinke’s travels. Here are a handful of the luxurious destinations we know Secretary Zinke’s been to since taking over at Interior:

Fundraiser at the Yellowstone Club, Montana — March 17th, 2017

Fundraiser, Big Sky Resort, Montana — March 18th, 2017

Fundraiser, Lone Mountain Ranch, Montana — March 18

Fundraiser, Club Comanche Hotel, St. Croix — March 30th, 2017

Republican National Committee Meeting, Hotel Coronado, San Diego — May 11th, 2017

Political Speech to Young America’s Foundation, Reagan Ranch, Santa Barbara — April 17th, 2017

Speech to Rule of Law Defense Fund, Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort — June 25

It’s not a bad life when you’re flying on taxpayers’ dime.

Oh, the places Secretary Ryan Zinke will go (for political fundraisers and speeches) was originally published in Westwise on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In a​n interview with the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal this afternoon, Secretary Zinke blamed “the resistance movement” for the lack of Senate-confirmed positions filled at the Department of Interior. Yet he’s failed to nominate more than half (10 of 14) of the open positions.

Here’s the relevant portion of the interview:

Interviewer: How many openings do you have that you are still trying to fill?

Secretary Zinke: Oh, man. And it has been very frustrating. I would say it is from the resistance movement. At every corner, they try to stop President Trump from winning, and some of their methodologies is to hold back, stop the Senate-confirmed positions, the just simple, you know, positions, getting in the office and doing the work of the people. You look at the problems in the Senate confirmation hearings, I have 17 Senate-confirmed positions. Today, I have three.

Interviewer: So basically, you have 14 that are still on hold?

Secretary Zinke: And that’s just the top-tier Senate-confirmed. Next to it, I still don’t have a director of our parks. I still don’t have a director in the BLM. I still don’t have a director of Fish and Wildlife and parks. And I believe it to be willful and intentional.

Interviewer: For those kind of openings like that, what does that mean for the Park Service, and for the Bureau of Land Management, and all the different areas where there still is that hole, how is that hurting those particular areas?

Secretary Zinke: Well, you know, I’m out in the field talking to our front line superintendents, and all of us in the Park Service, you know, want stability, we want a director. And I’ve chosen an imminently qualified, former superintendent, that’s well-respected, a veteran. There is absolutely no reason why he shouldn’t have been through the system, you know, months ago. But it does, it hurts us all. And I’ve always said, from a military officer and a congressman and a state senator, now a Secretary of the Interior point of view, is that critical things to fund in the government is the military and our park system.

It is true that there are 17 confirmable positions at DOI, three of which have been ​confirmed:

• Ryan Zinke, Secretary
• David Bernhardt, Deputy Secretary​
• Douglas Domenech, Assistant Secretary, Insular Affairs​

The Secretary has nominated an additional four appointees, all of whom have passed through the relevant committee and are on the Senate’s executive calendar. But there’s limited time in the Senate calendar and Senate Majority Leader McConnell has prioritized Obamacare repeal over a timely confirmation process. The four nominees awaiting final confirmation, but held up by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are:

• Joe Balash, Assistant Secretary, Land and Minerals​
• Brenda Burman, Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner
• Susan Combs, Assistant Secretary, Policy Management and Budget​
• Ryan Nelson, Solicitor

​Secretary Zinke has failed to nominate the remaining 10 Senate confirmed positions at DOI. He even suggests “the resistance” is gumming the works for his director at the Bureau of Land Management, the Park Service, and the Fish and Wildlife Service — but Zinke himself has not nominated anyone for those jobs.

Secretary Zinke and the Trump administration have no one to blame but themselves and their allies in Congress for the dysfunctional nominations process.

Zinke blames “the resistance” for his failure to fill open positions was originally published in Westwise on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.