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The Trump administration's efforts to push its "energy dominance" agenda are out of line with the views of the majority of Americans. A new poll conducted by The Washington Post found that 8 in 10 Americans believe that drilling levels should “decrease” or “stay as is.” Majorities say that the amount of oil and gas production offshore and on public lands should decrease. Less than 15 percent want to see increased drilling. Meanwhile, Interior Secretaries David Bernhardt and Ryan Zinke have spent their time at the department offering vast swaths of public lands and opening nearly the entire outer continental shelf to oil and gas development.
Neither Democrats, independents, nor Republicans support increasing the amount of oil, gas, and coal extraction on public lands, according to the poll. Strong majorities of Democrats and independents support a decrease.
Earlier this month, the Center for Western Priorities released its 2020 Winning the West Poll, surveying Western voters on energy and public lands issues. More information can be found here.
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Pendley said that horses leave land “so devastated and destroyed” that it will never recover. The same can be said of oil and gas companies. For each of the 23,000 wells drilled on public land over the past decade, more than an acre of land was scraped clean of all vegetation, top soil, cactuses, sagebrush and even centuries-old juniper trees."
