{"id":15839,"date":"2017-01-21T07:26:25","date_gmt":"2017-01-21T14:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=15839"},"modified":"2017-01-21T07:27:22","modified_gmt":"2017-01-21T14:27:22","slug":"opinion-hoping-for-the-best-from-new-interior-secretary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/01\/opinion-hoping-for-the-best-from-new-interior-secretary\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Hoping for the best from new Interior secretary"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Zinke\"<\/a>

Rep. Ryan Zinke<\/p><\/div>\n

As U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke prepares to serve at the helm of the Department of\u00a0Interior, he will be in a position to oversee more than 500 million acres of federal lands. During the Montana congressman’s\u00a0confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,\u00a0he reiterated his desire to be a \u201cTeddy Roosevelt conservationist.\u201d<\/p>\n

I listened carefully to his comments during that confirmation hearing and offer an initial review:<\/p>\n

Thumbs up!<\/h5>\n

\u2666 Zinke expressed support for keeping public lands public after the troubling House vote earlier this month that would assign a zero-dollar value to federal public lands. Montanans will need to hold him to his word.<\/p>\n

\u2666 Zinke expressed support for making permanent the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a\u00a0crucial program that invests earnings from offshore oil and gas leasing to provide recreation opportunities and public lands access to all Americans. LWCF uses zero taxpayer dollars. This\u00a0program provides Montanans with local parks, fishing access sites, and recreation trails. Fully\u00a0funding LWCF is a long overdue. It is a bipartisan endeavor that supports a $640 billion-plus industry\u00a0providing over 6 million jobs across America.<\/p>\n

\u2666 Zinke said he would help address the National Park Service maintenance backlog that\u00a0is crippling public access to our park system. We are encouraged by Zinke\u2019s forward-leaning statements on addressing the $12 billion-plus maintenance backlog in our nation\u2019s parks.\u00a0Yellowstone National Park faces a $632 million backlog, leading the nation in the most deferred\u00a0maintenance of any park in the country. Glacier National Park is facing close to $180 million in\u00a0much needed improvements to roads and infrastructure. These parks are Montana\u2019s crown\u00a0jewels that deserve necessary maintenance.

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n
Thumbs down<\/h5>\n

\u2666 Zinke’s answers on national monuments and the Antiquities Act raise more questions than\u00a0answers, especially for the many communities that are reaping the economic benefits of these\u00a0monuments. His comments reflect a troubling openness to overturning many national\u00a0monuments. Monuments important to American Indians\u2014and all Americans\u2014should not be overturned.<\/p>\n

\u2666 His answers regarding deferring to the states when creating new monuments is equally troubling. There is a fine line between ensuring robust local participation and wrapping it in so\u00a0much bureaucracy and government red-tape that every official in Montana would need to sign\u00a0off on future monuments. That would forever cripple the Antiquities Act, a Teddy Roosevelt\u00a0legacy important to Montana. We need Zinke make good on his vow to be a Teddy Roosevelt conservationist.<\/p>\n

\u2666 Zinke repeatedly emphasized that logging, energy development and mining are key parts of the economy\u2014on this we completely agree. What we didn\u2019t hear was equal emphasis on the\u00a0outdoor recreation economy, which is $646 billion strong and growing every day. Public lands management is a balancing act. Where appropriate, that may be oil and gas development,\u00a0but equally important is consideration for keeping the land open for recreation and public\u00a0access. Montanans will need to keep a careful eye on whether the new secretary of Interior is\u00a0actually striking this balance.<\/p>\n

There will be many reviews on the legacy our new Interior secretary will leave for all Americans.\u00a0We offer a timeless reminder of this awesome responsibility from his role model, again, the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt:<\/p>\n

\u201cHere is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage for your children and your children\u2019s children.\u201d<\/p>\n

I join many in encouraging Rep. Zinke to keep this message close to heart as he builds that legacy\u00a0in the coming years and we wish him well along the way.<\/p>\n

Lance Trebesch is CEO\/co-owner of Ticket River and Ticketprinting.com\u2014with facilities in\u00a0Harlowton and Bozeman. He is a founding member of Business for Montana\u2019s Outdoors and\u00a0serves on the organization\u2019s executive board.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke prepares to serve at the helm of the Department of\u00a0Interior, he will be in a position to oversee more than 500 million acres of federal lands. During the Montana congressman’s\u00a0confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,\u00a0he reiterated his desire to be a \u201cTeddy Roosevelt conservationist.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":15840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3864],"tags":[4660,5408,628,4438],"class_list":["post-15839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-interior-department","tag-land-and-water-conservation-fund","tag-ryan-zinke","tag-teddy-roosevelt","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}