Land Sales, Grabs

Over the past month it was made public that the Interior Department, the one run by Ryan Zinke, proposed the“disposition of federal real property,” in an effort to pay for infrastructure projects. Zinke of course denied it, and has recently told Field and Stream, Outdoor Life and Sportsmen’s groups that there was no such plan to sell off public lands. The leaked proposal contradicting the promises of the administration is not new, but it is still concerning.

Once again, Zinke has played second fiddle to Trump’s tormentors, I mean advisers, by abandoning his principles. In 2016, this same Zinke resigned his delegate role to the Republican National Convention in protest of the party’s platform initiative to transfer federal lands. This same person campaigned in defense of public lands and the outdoor industry in Montana. Now he seems content to reduce land protection, increase development for resource extraction, which can limit hunter and outdoor access, and apparently proposed selling land for infrastructure spending. Which could have been payed for if we had not reduced tax revenue by over a trillion dollars, but I Digress.

Jon Tester took on the mantle of standing up to Zinke, but we seriously need to consider the people we are putting in federal office if we want to keep our access to public lands, and to conserve those lands for the best use for the most people, not the select few who can make campaign donations.

Call Zinke, call Daines and call Gianforte and get their take on what public land protection means to them. Then check to see how honest they are about their past support of these issues, and vote accordingly in November.