Our likely Republican opponent Ryan Zinke just wrote an op-ed trying to rewrite history and whitewash his record on public lands. He makes quite the claim:
“I have never -- and will never -- sell your public lands.”
Zinke either thinks we’re stupid or is hoping we’re just not paying attention. While he ran the Department of the Interior, Zinke oversaw the largest sell-off of public lands and oceans in American history.
The National Resources Defense Council described Zinke’s tenure at the DOI as a “a full-scale attack on Teddy Roosevelt’s legacy.” He ripped apart environmental safeguards and threw the doors open for energy and mining companies to exploit public lands.
He even pushed President Trump to shrink national monuments like Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante to help his fossil fuel buddies turn a profit.
It’s bad enough that Zinke would turn his back on Montana and destroy our public lands, but to campaign on the lie that he never sold them off is despicable and politics at its very worst.