The New York Times. (2020, August 4). Trump Signs Landmark Conservation Bill. Retrieved August 31, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/us/politics/trump-land-conservation-bill.html
In the beginning of August, President Trump signed The Great American Outdoors Act. The landmark bill was very popular on both sides of the aisle in Congress. It aims to put the necessary funds (up to nearly two billion dollars a year) into maintenance projects in national parks and forests with the ultimate goal of preserving more land for the enjoyment of the American public for years to come. Besides the billions the act allocates towards the maintenance backlog and infrastructure projects, it guarantees that the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is often underfunded, has the necessary resources to acquire new land for public use.
The law is clearly a positive development for preservation, especially at a time when federal policy has trended away from environmental protection and funding. The bill is a divergence in the Trump administration’s overarching policy towards the environment. The administration has made moves such as leaving the Paris Climate Accords, opening up a vast amount of public land for fracking, and loosening regulations on emitting, all of which indicate a general disregard for the environment. The article mentions that two Republican senators who are both up for re-election in the West were leading forces behind the bill (presumably given they thought it would help them during the election). This, coupled with promises of a long-lasting conservation legacy, convinced President Trump to support the bill. To me, it only reinforces the idea that the reasons behind some of these important environmental developments are quite arbitrary when politics are involved. I question how much power we should vest in political systems when it comes to environmental matters.
I agree with you. I think that although this bill is beneficial for the environment the incentive behind it is definitely questionable. As you stated, it’s clear that this sudden divergence in what Trump has valued in the past is only to obtain more voters. Despite the wrong intentions behind the support of this bill, I think it’s a good thing that people are becoming more aware of environmental issues, and critical of those whose actions are detrimental to the environment. Do you think the arbitrary reasoning behind the political support of environmental issues is as obvious to others as it is to us?
Thank you reader. I harbor significant doubts that others possess the intellectual capabilities that us enlightened high schoolers do to recognize such a thing.