Rethinking Public Lands Is a Conversation Worth Having
The federal government owns huge swaths of western states. It isn’t crazy to suggest those acres could be put to better use.
For sale?
Photographer: Brandon Bell/Getty ImagesEight years ago on his first day as Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke memorably showed up in Washington on horseback, dressed in a cowboy hat and jeans. The stunt seemed designed to reinforce what the fifth-generation Montanan had just promised during his swearing-in ceremony: “to ensure our public lands are managed and preserved in a way that benefits all Americans."
Yet Zinke proceeded to do the opposite, shrinking national monuments and opening up millions of protected acres to mining and drilling while striking a private real estate deal with an oil executive — a scandal that contributed to his ouster. As the venerable Sierra Club put it: He “led the largest attack on America’s public lands and waters in history.”