Environment and Public Lands
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What Democrats Are Doing:
Democrats are committed to curbing the effects of climate change, protecting America’s natural resources and ensuring the quality of our air, water, and land for current and future generations. Democrats believe public lands are owned by the public; they value wildlife and habitat conservation and promote land use by sportsmen, for outdoor recreation and for renewable energy. |
What Republicans Are Doing:
Republicans did not present a platform in 2020 but the 2016 platform emphasized the market over environment protection and called for sweeping land transfers from public to private ownership. President Trump reversed the U.S. bipartisan record of protection and conservation of public lands by systematically undermining, degrading and attacking the laws that protect our public lands, the agencies that manage them and the resources these places safeguard for the American people. His administration opened up public lands to exploitation, removing, when they could, regulations for energy development on federal lands, particularly for oil and gas. See https://www.britannica.com/explore/savingearth/democrats-and-the-gop-are-miles-apart-on-public-lands and https://www.britannica.com/explore/savingearth/democrats-and-the-gop-are-miles-apart-on-public-lands and https://e360.yale.edu/features/on-u-s-public-lands-can-biden-undo-what-trump-has-wrought |