“I believe in a sound, strong environmental policy that protects the health of our people and a wise stewardship of our nation’s natural resources.” – President Ronald Reagan

Those words were spoken at a time when our elected leaders, regardless of party or faction, truly believed American natural resources were worth fighting for.  Clean water and clean air were priorities along with good health and safe communities.

Today our Nation is suffering from a lack of responsible environmental leadership, especially on the political right. We need more conservatives willing to show leadership and take a stand to preserve America’s natural heritage and security.

U.S. Representatives Ryan Costello and Brian Fitzpatrick showed that leadership when they voted against riders to the federal budget that would have blocked new U.S. Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules to cut natural gas waste and methane pollution.

That is why Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship is thanking Reps. Costello and Fitzpatrick for their leadership with a print and digital ad campaign. Now it is time for other elected officials, at the state and federal level, to join them in support of commonsense policies that protect American resources and our environment.

CRS is deeply disappointed that Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke has recommended that the Trump Administration dramatically shrink protections for some of our nation’s cherished national monuments. Secretary Zinke confirmed that he recommended rollbacks in a report to President Trump, but the administration has thus far kept the details shrouded in secrecy.

“This outcome seems to have been baked in from the start,” said CRS President David Jenkins. “How else can one explain a decision that defies consensus legal opinion and ignores the clear wishes of more than 99 percent of Americans who submitted comments?”

When the official comment period ended on July 10 for the Trump Administration’s review of 27 national monuments–the product of an executive order issued by the president that threatens to roll back many of them–more than 2.7 million people of all political stripes made their voices heard by submitting comments expressing support for America’s national monuments. That represents over 98 percent of all comments received.

CRS President David Jenkins had this to say:

“National monuments are a Republican idea stretching back to the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. That ethic of safeguarding America’s natural heritage is patriotic, conservative, and more popular than ever. If Secretary Zinke has been honest about his desire to build trust and listen to the public, then he should no doubt heed the overwhelming support expressed for those monuments under review by the more than two million Americans who submitted comments.”

Kudos to all of the CRS members who took the time to make their voice heard.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has submitted a report to President Trump recommending a significant reduction in the protected public acreage of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship (CRS) issued the following statement from President David Jenkins:

“As an organization that applauded the selection of Zinke as Interior Secretary, we are deeply disappointed that in his first major decision he chose to roll back protection for Bears Ears National Monument. In doing so, Secretary Zinke is abandoning the Theodore Roosevelt conservation ethic he professes, choosing instead to side with radical anti-public land zealots who seek to exploit rather than conserve.”

President Trump has just signed an unprecedented executive order instructing the Department of Interior to review the national monument designations of past presidents stretching back 21 years. The intent, according to Vice President Pence, is to “begin to undo” these designations. Never before in the 111-year history of President Theodore Roosevelt’s Antiquities Act, the law that authorizes the creation of national monuments, have we seen such a radical attack on this visionary protection of America’s natural and cultural heritage.

In response, CRS president David Jenkins said, “At the heart of the word conservation is the word conserve which is also the root word of conservative. The Antiquities Act is a conservative idea that was brought forth by a Republican Congressman, passed a Republican Congress and was signed into law by a Republican, President Theodore Roosevelt. President Trump and Secretary Zinke should continue this tradition and conserve the Antiquities Act and all of our nation’s monument designations as they are an important part of our nation’s history and culture.”

Please use our CRS Action Center link below to urge Secretary Zinke to keep all of America’s national monuments intact.

Save America’s National Monuments

Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship (CRS) applauds the designation of Bears Ears and Gold Butte National Monuments. The President’s use of the Antiquities Act was entirely appropriate and in keeping with the Act’s original intent. Affording these public lands extra protection is genuinely conservative, and that is true irrespective of which president makes the designations.

“Bears Ears and Gold Butte are both rich in natural and cultural treasures that need to be protected from existing threats, they are exactly the type of places Theodore Roosevelt’s Antiquities Act was designed to protect,” said CRS President David Jenkins.

Republican presidents—including Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan—have a long tradition of contributing to our great natural endowment of parks, forests, wildlife refuges, national monuments, and other public lands. They understood that these lands, your lands, are an essential part of who we are as a people, and that protecting them is both conservative and patriotic.

To help make sure that tradition continues, CRS has launched a campaign urging President-elect Donald Trump to also make safeguarding America’s public lands a top priority. To find out more, please visit our campaign page.

On June 15th, CRS president David Jenkins testified before the House Natural Resources and Homeland Security committees at a forum about Countering Extremism on America’s Public Lands. Ranking Members Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and Bennie Thompson (D-MS) held the forum after their requests for full committee hearings on the topic were rejected by Committee Chairs Rob Bishop (R-UT) and Michael McCaul (R-TX).

Jenkins expressed disappointment that this subject has not gotten a full committee hearing. “In light of the Malheur Refuge takeover, increasing threats against land managers, and the rise of militant groups like Oath Keepers, this is clearly an issue that deserves bi-partisan attention.”

He told the lawmakers that the Obama Administration was too timid in dealing with the 2014 Bundy Ranch standoff and called Congressman Rob Bishop’s (R-UT) inflammatory rhetoric “inexcusable.”

The forum can be viewed on the embedded video included in this post. CRS comments begin at the 30:08 mark. The written comments submitted by CRS are included as well.

Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship (CRS) is running print ads in the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News urging Utah Congressman Rob Bishop, who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, to denounce Bundy-style thuggery and lawlessness on our nation’s public lands, which even after numerous arrests, still threatens public safety and the visitor experience.

In the face of an alarming escalation of violence and intimidation by armed anti-public land militants, which culminated earlier this year in the take over of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Chairman Bishop has refused to denounce such extremism. Instead, he too often seems to be egging it on.

Not only did he refuse to cosponsor a resolution condemning the refuge takeover, he regularly hurls insults at land managers, and he recently co-sponsored a bill to strip federal agencies of their law enforcement authority. When asked if he would hold hearings about the Malheur incident and other extremist acts, the Chairman doubled down, saying that instead he wants to continue oversight of “what we feel is the abuse of individuals by the federal land management agencies…”

Bishop appears intent on inflaming sentiment against public lands and those who manage them to advance his land transfer goals. This would be irresponsible under any circumstance, but in light of recent threats against land managers and various incidents of armed aggression by the Bundys and others, it is reckless and dangerous.

As chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, Congressman Bishop has a duty to promote public safety and the rule of law. It is time for him to finally recognize that, and clearly denounce the actions of the Bundys and other militants.

The ads, which show Calf Creek Falls in Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, appear in the April 19th editions of the two newspapers.

The arrest of the key members of the Bundy clan and recent action to bring an end to the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge were long overdue and CRS applauds the efforts of the FBI and other law enforcement personnel.

In June of last year CRS called on the Obama Administration to bring scofflaw rancher Cliven Bundy to justice, along with the militants he rallied to an armed standoff with law enforcement in Nevada back in 2014. Our concern was that failing to promptly do so only further emboldens these radicals to greater extremes and more lawlessness.

That concern proved prescient on January 2nd when Ammon and Ryan Bundy, along with a handful of fellow militants, forcibly occupied the Malheur Refuge.

In the CRS press statement on the occupation being brought to an end, CRS president David Jenkins said:

“We commend the FBI and other law enforcement officers for ending the armed seizure of this beloved refuge and arresting those involved. The use of armed force and intimidation to get one’s way in a democracy is the worst kind of bullying. It undermines freedom and tramples on the rights of every other American.”

On Cliven Bundy, Jenkins noted:

“Cliven Bundy is not a sympathetic figure to real conservatives who respect the rule of law. He is a radical, anti-American bully who has cheated taxpayers, intimidated public officials, and broken the law with impunity for more than two decades. Any effort to defend his behavior or portray him as some kind of victim is a fool’s errand.