Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke , who has painted himself as a fierce opponent of selling and transferring public lands, played host Wednesday to members of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, the Koch brothers-backed nonprofit that advocates handing over control of federal lands to states.
During the closed-door meeting, which was held at the Interior Departments library, Zinke and other top agency officials discussed the issue of transferring public lands and empowering local communities to make land use decisions, South Carolina state Rep. Alan Clemmons (R), the secretary of ALECs board of directors, wrote in a Twitter post.
In a subsequent post , Clemmons said Zinke shared his plan to push the land use questions down to the local area.
He still opposes transfer of lands but gave some hope, without promises being made, that he will consider [memorandums of understanding] with local government on land management, Clemmons wrote.
MOUs with local governments are functionally equivalent to transferring ownership, said Chris Saeger, director of the liberal environmental group Western Values Project.
Its like leasing a house they get the keys, but not the title, and if they break something we have to pay for it, he said in an email.
President Donald Trump and Zinke have both repeatedly said they will not dispose of federal lands, either by sale or transfer. There are approximately 640 million acres of federally controlled lands.
Were not looking to sell off land, Trump said in a 2016 interview with the Outdoor Sportsman Group .
I am absolutely against transfer and sale of public lands , Zinke told reporters in April 2017. I cant be more clear. Zinke, a former Montana congressman whos insisted no one loves public land as much as I do , resigned as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 2016 over its support for transferring federal lands.
Yet, for the second time in four months, the administration has proposed to do just that, this time proposing the sale of 200 acres of federal land in Emery County, Utah , that power company PacificCorp hopes to incorporate into its Hunter power plant.
[Zinke] has shown he cannot be trusted to keep public lands in public hands.
- Chris Saeger, director of the Western Values Project
The Bureau of Land Management, one of the many agencies Zinke oversees, is considering the proposal due to the isolated nature of the parcel from other BLM managed lands, according to a statement earlier this month by Chris Conrad, manager of the agencys field office in Price, Utah. The parcel is surrounded on three sides by PacifiCorp land and would be offered to the company as a non-competitive direct sale. A public comment period on the proposal ends Saturday.
It seems unlikely that the land is a hotspot for outdoor recreation, given that it is adjacent to a coal-fired power station. Nevertheless, BLMs looming sale goes against Zinkes repeated assurances.
Zinke has shown he cannot be trusted to keep public lands in public hands, Saeger told HuffPost.
The persona he crafted to advance his political career has disintegrated under public scrutiny over the last two years, he said in an email.
This is neither the first time Zinke has spoken at a private meeting of the pro-land-transfer group nor the first time BLM has proposed selling federal lands under Zinkes watch.
In October, the Trump administration proposed disposing of more than 1,600 acres that until recently were protected as part of Utahs Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, as HuffPost first reported . The recommendation buried in a draft resource management plan called for the selling or transferring 16 federal parcels, including 120 acres adjacent to property owned by Utah state Rep. Mike Noel (R), an ally of the administration and a staunch opponent of the Clinton-era monument.
Facing widespread public outrage, Interior scrapped that proposal within roughly 48 hours. In a memo to BLM staff, Bernhardt said the the plan is inconsistent with Interior Department policy, as the Salt Lake Tribune reported at the time. An agency spokesperson told the paper Zinke did not see the proposal before it went out and was not happy about it.
_(720p).jpg)
 OFFICIAL HD MUSIC VIDEO.jpg)
.jpg)
