The Interior Department Scrubs Climate Change From Its Strategic Plan; Emphasizes 'Policing' Border

In the next five years, millions of acres of America’s public lands and waters, including some national monuments and relatively pristine coastal regions, could be auctioned off for oil and gas development, with little thought for environmental consequences. That’s according to a leaked draft, obtained by The Nation, of the Department of the Interior’s strategic vision: It states that the DOI is committed to achieving “American energy dominance” through the exploitation of “vast amounts” of untapped energy reserves on public lands. Alarmingly, the policy blueprint—a 50-page document—does not once mention climate change or climate science. That’s a clear departure from current policy: The previous plan, covering 2014–18, referred to climate change 46 times and explicitly stated that the department was committed to improving resilience in those communities most directly affected by global warming. Interior’s new strategic plan fits within a broader effort by the Trump administration to marginalize climate-science research. Not surprisingly, one of the DOI’s key performance indicators for the next five years will be the number of acres of public lands made available for oil and natural-gas leasing. Interior’s role in promoting renewable-energy development largely goes unmentioned. The new plan also has little to say about conservation, a word mentioned 74 times in the previous strategy blueprint and only 25 times in the new version. Instead of the protection of landscapes and ecosystems, the new report emphasizes Interior’s role in policing the US-Mexico border. The department manages nearly half of the southern border region, the report notes, as well as the third-largest number of law-enforcement officers in the executive branch. It intends to deploy them “to decrease illegal immigration and marijuana smuggling on DOI managed public lands.”...more 

new report emphasizes Interior’s role in policing the US-Mexico border.

What a joke. Interior has actually placed physical barriers on some of its lands to keep the Border Patrol out (See post from 2011 below)

Clearly, this is a ploy to play to Trump's strong immigration policies and secure higher budgets for Interior's law enforcement program.

Desert Pupfish Forces Border Agents to Patrol on Foot

Federal agents must abandon their vehicles and chase drug smugglers and illegal aliens on foot through 40 acres near the Mexican border because of a pond that is home to the endangered desert pupfish. It’s part of the agreement between the Homeland Security and Interior departments on how best to protect the ecosystem, frustrating lawmakers who say it also prevents agents from conducting routine patrols. "Drug cartels and other criminals could care less about these so-called memos of understanding, or whether they are trampling through a protected species" habitat, Rep. Rob Bishop (R.-Utah) told HUMAN EVENTS. “They would just as soon eat an endangered species as protect it,” Bishop said. The two-inch, bluish pupfish lives in the Quitobaquito Pond and spring channel in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument west of Tucson, Ariz. Border Patrol agents are no longer allowed to drive motorized vehicles into the area unless the life or safety of an officer or cross-border violator (CBV) is in danger. “USBP may access any portion of Quitobaquito by foot or on horseback at any time necessary to patrol or to pursue and apprehend cross-border violators,” the memo says. There are strict conditions set on use of the horses as well, which must be given a “weed-free-feed” so that its feces do not contaminate the ecosystem of the park. If the horses are actually kept there, the Border Patrol must “avoid contamination of ground and surface waters by removing animal waste from areas where horses are housed and disposing of it at an appropriate waste facility,” the document says...more

These Normandy-style barriers just ten feet from the Mexico border were erected by the National Park Service to block border patrol vehicles from pursuing illegal aliens into the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Agents are allowed to pursue on horseback, but only if the animal's diet consists of weed-free feed so that its feces cannot harm the ecosystem.

Posted by Frank DuBois at 3:13 PM 1 comment: Permalink