Look, I know you're tired. I know the world is on fire right now. I know that you're coming to RideApart likely for a bit of escapism and for us to talk about cool motorcycles, side-by-sides, snowmobiles, adventures, and gear. I know how hard it is just to live right in this very moment of history. But so do those folks who want to take advantage of the American people.
They know you're distracted.
But we absolutely can't be, as while everyone is paying attention to the latest viral video out of Minnesota, the Trump Administration is quietly trying to ram Steve Pearce's confirmation through the Senate so he can lead the Bureau of Land Management.
Lead, however, is not what Pearce wants to do. No, he's very much aligned with Captain Planet villain, and my Senator from Utah, Mike Lee, in his idiotic quest to sell off all of OUR public lands. And while there will be those who try to amoleorate Pearce's image, his background and voting history speak for themselves, and it's one of pure, unadulterated hatred toward public lands.
So with him in charge of the nearly 245 million acres, and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum in charge of the rest, both of whom are aligned with both President Trump's want for selling it all off to extractive industry, and Senator Lee's indigence toward the public owning the land, kiss your off-road trails, your camping, your hunting and fishing goodbye.
Pearce is the death sentence to public lands (his nickname is Sell-Off Steve, for pity's sake). That is, unless we speak up, and that's what we should do right now.
Pearce is a former Republican politician from New Mexico, and a former oil extraction company co-owner with his wife. He's a birth certificate conspiracy lunatic, along with someone who doesn't believe in climate change, which already should put you in the camp of not letting him anywhere near the levers of power. But if you're OK with those two, you should know that Pearce's voting record on public land, as well as his stated beliefs, are those that would do away with the stewardship that the U.S. partakes in with our federally managed public lands.
According to Colorado Newsline, "Pearce has spent decades championing the sale of the very lands he now wants to manage. He co-sponsored the HEARD Act, which would have forced the sale of federal lands to state and local governments that, in his words, 'we do not even need,' falsely claiming it would pay off the deficit." Again, that's something I've debunked numerous times, as though our public lands are worth quite a lot, and more than anything to many, the ballooning $38 trillion dollar deficit ain't gonna get solved by selling everything off.
Moreover, Pearce has criticized the great conservationist President Teddy Roosevelt, saying in a speech directed to the Colorado Conservative Political Action Conference a while back, "America, each state, the public lands were given back to the states after they were chartered. But in the West, starting with Teddy Roosevelt who had the big ideas of big forests and big national parks, they held that land. And so the next chart shows you the effect on us in the West. Just understand this is the education. The red is of course bad. We’re starved in the West for education funds because of policies that Mitt Romney sat and listened to Rob Bishop and myself explain when it came to Hobbs. He knows that if we want to reverse the trend, we’ll reverse this trend of public ownership of lands starving education."
That last part sounds good, as public education is a good thing. And state land sales semi-directly fund state education programs. Sort of. But this is a group of politicians who are gutting that branch of government, too. It's side-mouth, mealy talk that disguises their aims at selling off everything to highest bidder. And to illustrate just that, The Center for Western Priorities put together a list of seven times "Sell-Off" Steve attempted to get rid of our public lands over the course of his political career.
Pearce's nomination is indicative of the gameplan this administration is running, i.e., one built upon the extraction of resources from the many to give to the few. Basically, their billionaire buddies need more wealth, and the people of this great country need less. That's horseshit.
We used these lands to go off-roading. We use them to hunt and fish, to camp and climb, and do everything under the sun and stars. They're our public lands, not some administration's. And they're most definitely not for sale, as the American people continually chant every time these folks rear their ugly, greedy heads.
So call your Senators and tell them they cannot vote to confirm "Sell-Off" Steve. That Americans value our public lands. That we would be worse off as a nation without them. Because if we don't hold the line, "Sell-Off" Steve is going to fully earn his nickname, and once those lands are sold, we ain't getting them back.
