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Yesterday, the Trump administration released a proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2021. The document proposes a dramatic 16 percent funding cut for the Interior Department and severe cuts to other agencies as well. Unsurprisingly, the budget blueprint for Interior emphasizes the President's "energy dominance" agenda above all other priorities, and reiterates the administration's controversial goal to hold a lease sale in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The proposed budget recommends cutting funding for the popular Land and Water Conservation Fund by 97%. Also worrisome is the administration's proposal to provide $150 million in funding for the Department of Energy to create a domestic uranium stockpile.
The Executive Director of the Center for Western Priorities, Jennifer Rokala, responded to the proposed budget, saying "This attempt to kneecap the agency in charge of our parks and public lands is clearly dead on arrival,” especially given that "bipartisan majorities in Congress have rejected previous attempts to gut the Interior Department budget and are poised to do so again."
Ruling on the proposed Rosemont copper mine in Arizona
A federal judge overturned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s approval of a controversial open-pit copper mine in southern Arizona’s Santa Rita Mountains because of threats to jaguars and other endangered species.
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How much longer are we going to persist with the idea that the path to prosperity in some of the most beautiful places on earth is to drill oil wells and drag chains across the desert?"
