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Mt. Hood National Forest Trillium Lake. U.S. Forest Service, Flickr
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Key news from September:
- An analysis by the Center for Western Priorities found that over 99 percent of the over 600,000 comments submitted to regulations.gov opposed the Trump administration’s plan to repeal the 2001 Roadless Rule. The Roadless Rule currently protects over 58.8 million acres of national forest land from road-building, logging, and other industrial activity. “Across state lines and party lines, Americans spoke with one voice to tell President Trump to stop this attack on America’s forests,” said Center for Western Priorities Deputy Director Aaron Weiss.
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Hours before a congressional field hearing on renewing the Great American Outdoors Act, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued a secretarial order to significantly limit the effectiveness of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), one of the cornerstones of the law that President Trump signed in 2020. LWCF advocates noted that the order tries to limit the rights of private property owners by giving state governors veto power over land sales for conservation. Just before Burgum signed the LWCF order, the Keep Parks Public campaign held a community gathering in Jackson, Wyoming, where speakers decried the Trump administration's firing of thousands of employees across the National Park Service, Forest Service, and other land management agencies, and urged Congress to fully fund America's parks.
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The Trump administration announced it is planning to repeal the Public Lands Rule—a Biden-era Bureau of Land Management rule that affirmed conservation as a valid use of public land under the 1976 Federal Lands Policy Management Act and put it on par with activities like drilling, logging, grazing, and mining. The Public Lands Rule, also known as the Conservation & Landscape Health Rule, was finalized in 2024 and enables public land to be leased explicitly for environmental restoration efforts. A public comment analysis completed by the Center for Western Priorities in 2023 found near universal support for the Public Lands Rule.
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Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the Trump administration will open more than 13 million acres of national public land to coal leasing, while also lowering the royalty rate that mining companies pay to taxpayers from twelve to seven percent. During his press conference, Burgum cited an AI “arms race” with China as justification for the giveaway. Energy experts say that any boost for coal during the Trump administration is likely to be temporary because natural gas is cheaper, and there’s a more stable market for renewable energy.
What to watch for in October:
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From the Center for Western Priorities:
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Leaving national parks open but unprotected is illegal and irresponsible
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Overturning resource management plans could unleash chaos for everyone, including ranchers and oil companies
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In honor of National Public Lands Day, we’re bringing you a special behind the scenes episode about our Keep Parks Public tour featuring the team here at CWP. As many listeners or Look West subscribers may know, the CWP team embarked on a 10-day journey that took us from Denver to Las Cruces, Tucson, Flagstaff, Moab, Salt Lake City, Grand Junction, and Jackson Hole over the past month and a half.
The main goal of the Keep Parks Public tour was to highlight the impacts President Trump’s staffing and funding cuts are having on public lands across the West. But we ended up covering a lot more than that. We talked to local political and business leaders, conservation advocates, former park rangers and superintendents, and public land lovers at every stop on our trip— and the message from everyone was clear: public lands are not ok. Nor are the people who care for them.
We’re going to share what we learned on the tour and play some of the best quotes from our live events. Then we’ll close out by reading you some of the 150+ comments folks have submitted through our Keep Parks Public website answering the question: Why do public lands matter to you?
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Kate and Aaron talk to former Montana gubernatorial candidate, public lands hunter, and Substack author Ryan Busse about how billionaires are cutting off access to the outdoors in Montana and a whole lot more. We also briefly touch on the news that the Trump administration is repealing the Public Lands Rule and give an update on the Roadless Rule repeal comment period.
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Indigenous teens paddled 310 miles of newly undammed Klamath River
San Francisco Chronicle
Conservation advocates tell Congress to fund park maintenance, protect Land & Water Conservation Fund
WyoFile | Cowboy State Daily | Jackson Hole News & Guide | Center for Western Priorities [Statement]
What happens to national parks if the government shuts down?
Mountain Journal | Wes Siler's Newsletter | NPR
Revoking the public lands rule 'Just tipped the scales back to the 19th century'
The Cool Down
As Trump targets national parks that 'disparage Americans,’ advocates warn history is at stake
KQED
Decades of public-lands planning, overturned in a day
High Country News
How low oil prices turned Trump’s call to ‘drill, baby, drill’ into a pipe dream
Grist
Major Burgum donor lands plum job at Interior department
Public Domain
Youth plaintiffs say Trump energy orders violate their constitutional rights
Montana Free Press | Daily Montanan | New York Times
Wildfire smoke could soon kill 71,000 Americans every year
Grist | Inside Climate News | New York Times
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“Allowing 21 days to unravel 25 years of forest protections tells you exactly what’s going on here, which is that this administration has no interest at all in listening to the American people.”
—CWP Deputy Director Aaron Weiss, Outdoor Life
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@usinterior
At @katmainpp in Alaska, salmon sustain one of the richest coastal ecosystems on Earth. At Brooks Falls, they must run a gauntlet of hungry bears, wolves, birds, and other predators before spawning further inland.
Every summer, sockeye salmon return from the ocean, where they have spent two or three years, and travel up rivers, lakes, and streams to return to the headwater gravel beds of their birth to deposit their young before dying.
A sockeye salmon fresh from the sea in July contains around 4,500 calories, while one that has spawned in September may only have half that many. Bears feast on them and turn into the chonky celebrities of Fat Bear Week.
Fat bears exemplify the richness of Katmai National Park and Bristol Bay, Alaska, a wild region that is home to one of the largest populations of brown bears and also the healthiest run of wild sockeye salmon left on the planet.
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