I spent several hours last week watching the first few hearings from the House Natural Resources Committee. I never realized that a political change could be so dramatic. For the last two years, Rep. Rob Bishop from Utah has been the chair of the committee and the agenda was clearing regulations and putting our public lands back to work. They wanted to amend the Endangered Species Act and get the BLM and Forest Service to relax grazing regulations.
The last committee was very pro-public lands rancher and all public lands resource users. Overnight, the agenda changed when the new chairman, Rep. Raъl Grijalva of southern Arizona—who hasn’t been a big friend of the public land ranching community and is very close with the Center for Biological Diversity—took charge.
The new agenda for the committee is “Climate Change.” In the first meeting, several of the freshmen representatives were very passionate about the issue and called for massive changes to our carbon energy use. Yes, they were promoting the Green New Deal.
I would expect a freshman representative to jump in with passion and articulate their position on climate change. The Democrat side of the committee was calling climate change a dire situation and that we would see catastrophic change soon. Urgency was the call: “We must do drastic things now or perish!”
Panic seemed to be the order of the day. And I must say that, if you’re having a panic attack, it is no time to be making drastic decisions for our nation.
It’s interesting listening to these new Congress people. Some were very clear on the fire topic, and some were just coming out of the shadows. It came down to these questions: Are public lands the solution to climate change? Or are the magnitude of recent fires the product of climate change? Kind of a chicken-or-the-egg question.
It would be hard to call the seven-member panel testifying n the first hearing “experts” on the topic. Only three had credentials I would consider worthy. My favorite was the member of the Hip Hop Coalition. But you must remember this is now Chairman Grijalva’s show, so expect the wild stuff—that’s who he is.
Some of the freshmen representatives brought up the usual talking points: “Look around you—the last five years were the hottest since the 1880 and we’re having a climate catastrophe. We need to focus on the science and the evidence to have a sustainable future. We’re wreaking havoc on our ecosystems and we need to preserve biodiversity.” They then claimed we’ve lost two-thirds of our species since the industrial revolution.
Then some of the old dogs spoke. Rep. Tom McClintock from California asked one panelist if our climate has been hotter today, and whether we’ve had worse hurricanes and drought and higher carbon levels throughout history, and the answer was yes, we’ve had worse climate events. One even said that oil and gas production on our public lands was 25 percent of the total methane released into the atmosphere and we must protect our public lands. They spoke as if public lands were both the problem and the solution, which bothers me to some extent.
But they all seemed to think that a one-size-fits-all solution from Washington wasn’t the best solution. Many representatives, mostly Republican, were advocating that climate issues are local in their impact and need local solutions. Communities need to collaborate with all stakeholders and adjust their infrastructure locally. And that we need bottom-up solutions, that the states are great local labs to deal with it, and they would earn innovation dividends.
One of my favorite “expert” witnesses was a young man from Patagonia, the outdoor apparel maker. Patagonia jumped into the climate issue when President Donald Trump reduced the size of Bears Ears and the Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
Patagonia advocates 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. He said that our public lands are our greatest collective asset and if Trump continues his assault it would have an effect on the $9 billion outdoor apparel industry. They were even advocating for renewable organic farming and a moratorium on drilling leases on public lands and offshore.
Several representatives blasted Patagonia as hypocrites because most of their products are made in Southeast Asia and their polyester fabrics are made from oil products. How could they call for a ban on public land drilling when they themselves have a huge carbon footprint?
We must watch what comes out of the committee because they can directly change how you do business. Like I said, they didn’t say much about livestock production on public lands, but I wouldn’t assume we’re safe. We have a lot of inexperienced members attempting to form public lands policy. Right now, we all agree on the multiple use decree. And now more than ever we need to promote the benefits of our stewardship and our ability to sequester carbon. — PETE CROW
