As noted in an earlier report, Biden’s administration recently approved ConocoPhillips’ $8 billion drilling project in Alaska.
Environmental extremists, a key Democratic Party constituency, were clearly unhappy with this reasonable support of a critical American industry.
So, in a public relations move, Biden has just signed away the potential for Americans to develop and neatly one-half million acres in Nevada and Texas.
…. Biden said Tuesday he is establishing national monuments on more than half a million acres in Nevada and Texas and creating a marine sanctuary in U.S. waters near the Pacific Remote Islands southwest of Hawaii. The conservation measures are “protecting the heart and soul of our national pride,″ Biden said.Speaking at a White House summit on conservation action, Biden said the new monuments are among the “natural treasures” that “define our identity as a nation. They’re a birthright we have to pass down to generation after generation.″Biden designated Avi Kwa Ame, a desert mountain in southern Nevada that Native Americans consider sacred, as a national monument, along with the Castner Range in El Paso, Texas. He also moved to create a national marine sanctuary in U.S. waters around the Pacific Remote Islands.
Nevada’s new Republican governor slammed the monument designation as “federal confiscation.”
Gov. Joe Lombardo, who unseated the state’s Democratic governor in November, said the White House did not consult with his administration before moving to block clean-energy projects and other development in his state.“This kind of ‘Washington Knows Best’ policy might win plaudits from unaccountable special interests, but it’s going to cost our state jobs and economic opportunity,” Lombardo said in a statement.
Sadly for Biden, the eco-activists are not consoled.
Biden made the announcement at a summit for tribal leaders and elected officials that was hosted by the White House and Interior Department.As they met, climate and youth activists demonstrated outside the Interior Department’s headquarters to protest the recently approved Willow oil drilling project in Alaska. The Biden administration approved the controversial Willow Project last week.The drilling project, which is slated for the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, galvanized a surge of online activism against it in recent months. Environmental advocates have filed two lawsuits in federal court to stop the project.
But at least the cultists can accept that it is another reversal of President Trump‘s economy-strengthening policies.
Former President Donald Trump reduced protections for those monuments during his administration. The Trump administration cut the size of the federally protected lands in Utah and sought to open up the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument to commercial fishing.
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