Mocking aside, Trump’s response was telling. It demonstrated that the U.S. outdoors and national parks are not among his priorities in the 2024 campaign or a potential new presidential term.
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Donald Trump’s answer to a children’s question on national television this week drew scoffing and ridicule — but it was a revealing response nonetheless.
The Republican White House nominee attended, in person, Friday morning’s “Fox & Friends” program. During the show, the former president answered questions, including one by a child who asked Trump to name his favorite farm animal.
“I’ll tell you what I love, I love cows,” Trump said.
But rather than elaborate, Trump immediately pivoted to the political arena saying: “But if we go with Kamala, you won’t have any cows anymore. I don’t want to ruin this kid’s day.”
The response — amid reports Trump was “exhausted” and canceling appearances — was greeted with derision on social media. One commented on X: “What kind of psycho does this? A child asks Trump his favorite animal. He responds by saying Kamala Harris is a ‘radical left lunatic’ who will get rid of cows.”
The mocking aside, Trump’s response was telling for a different reason. It demonstrated that the U.S. outdoors and national parks are not among his priorities in the 2024 campaign or a potential new presidential term.
Here are five things to know about Trump and the environment.
Trump speaks more about what he has built than nature he has preserved
In his public statements, Trump decidedly embaces development over conservation of the natural world.
He touts the buildings and golf courses he owns and rarely talks about the grandeur of America’s landscape. As president, Trump trumpeted the engineering feat at Mount Rushmore, the carving in stone of the faces of U.S. presidents, but not the beauty of the Black Hills or Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon or the Florida Everglades.
An example was a rally in the Bronx in May when he spoke of America’s most famous urban skyline, New York City, in “the city I helped build,” he said.
“For my whole life I always thought this city is a monumental testament to the power of the American spirit and the American dream,” he said. “When New York started as a small, rugged Dutch trading post near the tip of Manhattan in 1624, what you see around you was nothing more than wilderness and marsh. But by the muscle and backbone and genius of the people of New York we built this city into the towering forest of iron, aluminum, concrete and steel.”
Trump, oil drilling and Alaska wildlife
Should he win Nov. 5, Trump has promised to open up one of the last tracts of pristine wilderness in the United States for petroleum drilling.
Trump’s plan to deflate prices and dampen inflation, he has repeatedly said, is to “drill, baby, drill” for oil and natural gas. His proposal calls for massive increases in fuel production, including coal, to drive down energy costs although economists have also blamed U.S. inflation on supply chain issues and money supply in the post-pandemic era.
Included in Trump’s drilling plan is permitting oil development in at Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Known by its acronym, ANWR, the national wildlife refuge is located in northeastern Alaska. It covers indigenous, traditional Iñupiaq and Gwich’in lands and encompasses 19,286,722 acres of Alaskan North Slope region and its northern coastline as well as extensive inland forest, taiga, and tundra regions.
It is one of the few wildlife zones that is home to the three endemic American bears — polar bears, grizzly bears, and American black bears. The list of mammals that live in the refuge includes: moose, caribou, wolves, red and Arctic fox, Canada lynx, wolverine, pine marten, American beaver and North American river otter.
Trump on federal lands and housing
Trump’s plan to reduce housing costs also calls for building on federal lands. That objective is spelled, out vaguely, on the GOP 2024 platform that is posted on the former president’s campaign’s website.
It reads: “To help new home buyers, Republicans will reduce mortgage rates by slashing Inflation, open limited portions of Federal Lands to allow for new home construction, promote homeownership through Tax Incentives and support for first-time buyers, and cut unnecessary Regulations that raise housing costs.”
How this would play out is unclear. Trump has mentioned building homes on property held and managed by the U.S. government but not to any great detail.
The federal government currently posses close to 650 million acres, roughly 30% of the U.S. surface area. However, those lands are disproportionately located. For example, 80% of land in Utah is in federal possession versus minimal percentages in Eastern states such as New York.
“Multiple federal agencies manage the nation’s land and water resources,” the U.S. Government Accountability Office says on its website. “However, these agencies face challenges with protecting and managing these resources. The management of these resources is largely characterized by the struggle to balance the demand for greater use of these resources with the need to conserve and protect them for the benefit of future generations.”
Trump rarely mentions it, but he signed historic national lands law
In the waning months of his presidency, Trump signed what is by all accounts a landmark, bipartisan law providing funds for America’s natural gems, its national parks and lands.
Congress passed the Great American Outdoors Act in the summer of 2020, which Trump then signed into law. The act allocated as much as $1.3 billion each year through the end of this decade to maintain and fund repairs in U.S. national parks. The legislation also creates a permanent funding source — to the tune of $900 million annually — for the national Land and Water Conservation Fund.
The U.S. Department of Interior said “the Great American Outdoors Act is a historic investment in the protection and sustainment of our public lands and Bureau of Indian Education-funded schools.”
Others are less effusive about Trump’s term and public lands
Despite the Great American Outdoors Act, groups engaged in advocating on behalf of national parks and public lands are very critical of the Trump administration.
The National Parks Conservation Association lists 20 rules, orders and policies the Trump administration enacted that the non-profit organization said had an adverse impact on U.S. flora and fauna.
They include actions that threatened caribou migrations, permitting coal mining leases on federal lands, pumping water out of the Mojave Desert, executive orders impacting Rocky Mountain and Joshua Tree national parks and removing the Yellowstone grizzly bear population from the Endangered Species List.
“President Trump and the officials he appointed systematically undermined, degraded and outright attacked the laws that protect our public lands, the agencies that manage them and the irreplaceable resources these places safeguard for the American people,” the organization writes on its website.
Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at [email protected]. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
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Publish date : 2024-10-19 09:57:00
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