<\/p>\n
When it comes to conservation, energy, and many other issues, Donald Trump\u2019s presidential campaign has been a lot of hat and not much cattle. But last week his son, Donald Trump Jr., offered some insight into what his father\u2019s natural-resources policies might look like.<\/p>\n
While speaking at a media summit last week organized by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership in Fort Collins, Colorado, Trump Jr., an avid hunter and angler, defended keeping federal lands managed by the government and open to the public. He also reiterated his father\u2019s strong support for U.S. energy development, proposed some corporate sponsorships in national parks, questioned humans\u2019 role in climate change, and criticized Hillary Clinton for \u201cpandering\u201d to hunters with \u201cphoniness.\u201d U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-California, spoke for Clinton\u2019s campaign at the summit a day later, and provided plenty of contrast between the presidential candidates.<\/p>\n
Trump Jr. has served as an adviser to his father on natural-resources issues and has even joked with family that, should his father win, he\u2019d like to be Secretary of the Interior, overseeing national parks and millions of acres of federal public lands. In Fort Collins, he said he\u2019s not \u201cthe policy guy,\u201d but repeated his frequent pledge to be a \u201cloud voice\u201d for preserving public lands access for sportsmen. Trump Jr. also mocked some gun-control measures, such as ammunition limits, boasting, \u201cI have a thousand rounds of ammunition in my vehicle almost at all times because it\u2019s called two bricks of .22 \u2026 You know, I\u2019ll blow\u2026through that with my kids on a weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate, partly distinguished himself among other GOP candidates during primary season\u2014not that that was a problem for the New York real-estate developer\u2014by balking at the transfer of federal public lands to states or counties. While Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and others expressed support for public-land transfers, kowtowing to some Western conservatives, Trump rejected the idea. Speaking to Field & Stream in January, Trump said: \u201cI don\u2019t like the idea because I want to keep the lands great, and you don\u2019t know what the state is going to do. I mean, are they going to sell if they get into a little bit of trouble? And I don\u2019t think it\u2019s something that should be sold. We have to be great stewards of this land. This is magnificent land.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump Jr. reaffirmed that stance, but also supported more input for states as long as those efforts don\u2019t jeopardize public access.<\/p>\n
Trump, however, did attack the Bureau of Land Management and its \u201cdraconian rule,\u201d writing in an op-ed in the Reno Gazette-Journal, also in January: \u201cThe BLM controls over 85 percent of the land in Nevada. In the rural areas, those who for decades have had access to public lands for ranching, mining, logging and energy development are forced to deal with arbitrary and capricious rules that are influenced by special interests that profit from the D.C. rule-making and who fill the campaign coffers of Washington politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rep. Thompson called Trump\u2019s somewhat muddled stance of federal land management a \u201cdangerous position to take,\u201d saying Clinton unequivocally opposes public-land transfers. As far as Clinton\u2019s sporting cred, Thompson said the Democratic candidate doesn\u2019t pretend to be a hook-and-bullet enthusiast, but \u201cshe gets it\u201d when it comes to access issues.<\/p>\n
In a campaign loud with proclamations yet nearly vacant of substantive policies, the most in-depth view into Trump\u2019s resource agenda came during his May speech at a North Dakota petroleum conference. Trump pledged to \u201csave the coal industry,\u201d approve the Keystone XL gas pipeline, roll back federal controls limiting energy development on some public lands, and withdraw the U.S. from the Paris global climate agreement. A Republican National Committee spokesman recently said more details on Trump\u2019s energy and environmental policies should be coming soon. His son reiterated the campaign\u2019s \u201cvery pro-U.S. energy\u201d position, although he did say agencies should have some role in regulating energy development on public lands, referring to the Bureau of Land Management\u2019s proposed fracking rule that was recently rejected by a federal judge.<\/p>\n
On climate change, Trump Jr. said U.S. and global policies shouldn\u2019t penalize industries and, while acknowledging the strong scientific consensus on climate change and its causes, he added that humans\u2019 and industries\u2019 roles in global warming have \u201cyet to be shown to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump Jr. also offered mild support for the Endangered Species Act, saying it had achieved some successes, but argued the law has served as a \u201cTrojan horse\u201d to entirely prohibit development in some cases. He also suggested national-parks management and budgets could benefit from increased corporate partnerships. Trump\u2019s son declared his own affinity for the backcountry and described national parks as being \u201ca little bit too \u2018tourist-ized\u2019 for myself,\u201d but he said, \u201cI think there are ways you can do (corporate sponsorship) in a way that is beneficial\u201d without installing flashing logos on natural features or commercializing the parks.<\/p>\n
Clinton has shared several detailed policies on the environment and energy so far, including a white paper on land management and conservation that lays out support for a national park management fund and increased renewable energy development on public lands. Those proposals signal Clinton will \u201cdouble down\u201d on protecting public lands and preserving access, Thompson said.<\/p>\n
Thompson also lauded Clinton for taking \u201ca risky public position\u201d on energy development\u2014referring to her previous statement that she will put lots of coalmines \u201cout of business\u201d\u2014but \u201cshe hasn\u2019t backed away from it,\u201d he said. \u201cShe understands there are better ways to generate the energy resources that we need.\u201d<\/p>\n
A version of this article was originally published on hcn.org..<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Presidential campaigns offer a sneak peek into natural resource policies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":104348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[120,529,664,299,826,315],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-104347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-colorado","tag-conservation","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-national-elections","tag-political-campaigns","tag-president-donald-trump"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104347"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=104347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}