The most pro-American stance a leader can take is to defend our best ideas. America’s national parks and our nation’s beautiful environment are part of our heritage, identity, and are ultimately our greatest strength.
From President Theodore Roosevelt dramatically expanding public lands protections to President Richard Nixon signing the Clean Air Act, our best days have come when protecting the environment was led by leaders on both sides of the aisle.
The current administration is not honoring that shared American value. Nearly two years into President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration is failing the American people on the environment, on our national parks, and on the public lands that are supposed to unite us.
Plenty of people in the environmental movement would’ve opposed anything pro-environment this president did on mere partisan principle. I’m not one of them. Early last year I worked closely with the president’s team and several cabinet officials to help shape a well-intentioned and potentially powerful executive order: “Make America Beautiful Again.” This initiative called on his cabinet to secure a historic investment in our public lands, our forests, our water, and outdoor recreation. I firmly believed in the concept, and I still believe in its potential, but we’ve gotten the opposite of what was promised.
This president labels his policies “America first,” but on public lands and national parks he’s simply put America last. As someone who was in those rooms making the case, I could not be more disappointed. And it doesn’t need to be this way.
Their record is dark. Thus far, the Trump Administration has gutted national park staff, opposed by around 86% of Americans. They’ve proposed sell-offs of public land, which is opposed by nearly 90% of voters in Western states, where these spaces are concentrated. They’ve prioritized rollbacks to policies like the Endangered Species Act, which is opposed by 85% of Americans. They’ve stripped protections for clean water, clean air, national forests, and more, also opposed by the vast majority of Americans.
On issue after issue, this administration has landed on the wrong side of the American people on the environment. Public blowback has stopped a few of these decisions, but a new threat to the great American outdoors seems to surface almost every week. These are quite possibly the two worst years for our environment under a president in my lifetime.
I’ve sat across from dozens of White House officials, and I can tell you there are people who care deeply about conservation. My sense is that their voices are being drowned out by those who primarily act in opposition to the Democratic Party, many of whom have never spent real time in America’s grandeur and do not understand what it means to the rest of us. They are doing the president a disservice. His single most popular act in his first term was arguably signing the immensely bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act, the largest investment in our national parks in history. Now, on an issue that could unify the country and win him support from every walk of life, he and his team are deliberately walking the other way.
The President and his team could defend any one of these choices on its own, justified by claiming they’re making the government more efficient, that local management of our land is better, or that they are unleashing economic growth. Yet, taken together, their actions add up to a plain refusal to treat our environment and our public lands as a priority in any real sense. More than that, I am concerned by their lack of proactive, positive environmental policies. It’s backwards, and it cuts against the American voter and against our national character.
Two things can exist simultaneously. The economy is, understandably, the country’s top concern right now. But it does not have to come at the cost of shrinking or dismantling the country’s natural resources and beauty. Smart, limited government does not require slashing America’s grandest idea. It does not mean choosing polluters over citizens. It does not mean railroading projects through communities that never asked for them. It does not mean overriding the will of the people.
Nearly a third of all land in the United States is publicly owned and managed by the federal government. The current approach compounds decades of these lands being mismanaged and desperately underfunded.
Our air quality and water quality are worsening, invasive species are spreading at alarming rates, soil health is degrading, and much more. How we care for these resources should not be a partisan policy fight. It should be a productive dialogue that shapes the American landscape itself and improves the lives of families in every corner of the country.
Our national parks aren’t political; they’re American.
I am often told by friends on the political left that Trump will never make conservation a priority, that Republicans simply hate the environment. I understand the cynicism.
But it is neither productive nor true to who Americans actually are. The vast majority of the American voters want the same things when it comes to our National Parks and environment. Our leaders, specifically around this Administration, just aren’t reflecting that right now. Outside of Washington, Americans would love to see this president, and every president, protect these places.
My prediction: The Republican Party will continue to lose voters if they fail to protect our environment, and it should. Americans believe our nation’s beauty is worth defending. We ought to follow the public, not an endless political game of ping-pong.
Americans don’t wear a party patch on their sleeve when it comes to the health of our environment. They wear pride in this nation’s beauty. Today, a record-low share of Americans believe our environment is healthy. If there was ever a wrong moment to make cuts, this is it. Not when energy demand, AI, data centers, and screen addiction are straining this country like never before. Not when visits to National Parks and public lands are near an all-time high — and those lands need more care, not less. Not when Americans expect their tax dollars to build historic investment in our environment, not strip it away.
America has always found a way, albeit imperfectly, to balance protecting our environment with growing our economy. We do not have to ruin our public lands to save our economy. Investing in the places that keep us whole benefits our mental health, our physical health, and our economic health.
History will never look kindly on a leader who lets America’s most beloved places decline. President Trump has two years left to prove he’s better than that. He can work across partisan boundaries and accomplish popular, common-sense environmental wins, or he can be remembered as the worst president for America’s environment in modern history.
The choice is his. And it shouldn’t be a hard one.
The post Trump’s Attacks on the Environment Are Out of Touch With America appeared first on TIME.
