Lonnie L. White
Newton
How would you feel if the U.S. Government started selling Yellowstone, Glacier, Little Big Horn, Mount Rushmore and any of the other National Parks, forests and wildlife refuges to our states or counties? According to an Aug. 2 Des Moines Register editorial this could happen.
Our two U.S. Senators, along with 49 other Republicans, approved a non-binding resolution to do just that.
There is a “backlog of deferred maintenance projects now to be estimated at a cost of $11.5 billion.” This is due to the “Congress reducing their budget by 62 percent over the past decade” and the “GOP’s 2015-2016 budget would force the Park Service to scrap 70 percent of its planned construction projects and 1/3 of its repair projects.”
This resolution will strip these parks, forests etc. from the protection they now have from all sorts of environmental disasters such as “mining, fracking, drilling, logging, construction and other forms of development” that could be done.
Senator Ernst stated she believes that “the state and local authorities, not federal bureaucrats, should decide how to balance conservation and recreational access with appropriate economic development.” Senator Grassley has stated he would oppose any “massive sell-off of federal lands.”
I can’t believe Senator Ernst made that statement but it doesn’t surprise me and what would Senator Grassley feel would be a “massive sell-off?” Who knows.
Can you imagine what would happen to these national treasures if the states or counties had control of them? I can’t. What if they need extra revenue, they could just sell off some of these protected lands to big oil companies, logging companies or any other big corporation to get the revenue they need.
For our Congress to believe this is the right thing to do scares me, but what can we expect from a do-nothing Congress for the last seven years? What do our children and grandchildren have to look forward to?
Please call these senators and tell them they have made a great error in supporting this resolution.