Trump Still The Most Anti-Environmental President In History

Helena, MT — Today, the House of Representatives passed the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA), legislation that will fully and permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF)– which is America’s most important public lands, public access and parks program– and provide billions in funding to address the long-neglected infrastructure and maintenance needs across America’s national parks. The House passed GAOA on a 310-107 vote with dispatch to mirror the Senate version. Upon GAOA’s passage, Western Values Project Director Jayson O’Neill issued the following statement:

“As this no-brainer legislation heads to President Trump’s desk for his signature, signing this bill by no means makes up for Trump having the worst environmental and public lands record in history. This administration has sold out our public lands and waters to the President’s corporate cronies and polluting allies time and again while the majority of the Senate stood idly by. 

“Three plus years of giving extractive industries everything they want at the expense of our environment will undermine any attempt to greenwash a pro-polluter record that speaks for itself. And while it’s a laudable effort to address the ballooning maintenance backlog across our parks and finally fully and permanently fund America’s most important public lands and access tools, Congress and the administration should have taken the steps to do this years ago.”   

The Great American Outdoors Act passed even as anti-public lands Congressman Rob Bishop threatened antics to stop its passage. GAOA previously passed the Senate on a 73-25 vote. President Trump has already vowed to sign the legislation with dispatch even though he proposed nearly eliminating funding from the Land and Water Conservation Fund earlier this year. 

Background On Trump’s Favors To Extractive Industries At the Expense of Our Public Lands:  

• Trump’s efforts to cut royalty rates for offshore oil drillers directly impacts the funding stream for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is supported by revenues from offshore drilling.
• In the first lease sale of Trump’s administration, royalty rates on shallow water offshore drilling leases were slashed to the statutory minimum of 12.5%, down from 18.75%.
• Recently, Trump’s administration has proposed a discount scheme to allow oil companies to effectively pay even less than the legal minimum for oil pumped from our coasts.
• Trump has even let extractive resources off the hook during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing energy companies temporary breaks on royalties and rent they pay to extract oil and gas from leases on public lands as everyday Americans struggle to pay their bills in the midst of record unemployment. 
• Trump appointed former oil-lobbyist David Bernhardt as Secretary of the Interior Department and recently nominated anti-public lands extremist William Pendley to lead the Bureau of Land Management. Pendley has been an outspoken objector to the LWCF program.

More information and research on the Trump administration’s abysmal public lands and environmental record is available at www.WesternValuesProject.org.