Secretary Zinke, either get the facts about climate change so that you can be entrusted to manage our public lands, or resign.

The fires in the West are NOT caused by “radical environmentalism;” they’re due to climate change. The blame lies on bureaucrats like you (and others in the past), puppets of the oil and gas industry, who:  lack the personal integrity to question the industry’s spiel; fail to regulate the industry heavily enough to do the least damage; and, show no concern about the long-term effects of actions that you could have mitigated or prevented, knowing that they will become someone else’s problem in the future.

In addition, you’ve sought to “streamline” your reckless leasing of OUR land by cutting out OUR input on how it will be managed.  You’ve needlessly cut the size of designated monuments, opposed The Antiquities Act when used for its purpose--to protect lands sacred to our heritage, and opened up as much of OUR lands as possible for fossil fuel extraction and destruction, mostly in the West where surface and groundwater is scarce and too precious to become poisoned by fracking fluids ; for example, you leased 80 billion tons of coal production without regard for the environmental consequences or impact on climate change. 

GET INFORMED. You can’t be informed just by believing what someone wants you to believe, or what you are paid to believe; rather, go to sources that have researched the matter without regard to political or monetary gain. Here’s a good one:  www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01magazine/climate-losing-earth.html, facts, not opinion. You’ll learn that global warming concerns date back to the late 1960’s, posing serious threats to our national security and the existence of the world as we know it.  Your responsibility to us is far greater than:  propping up the ego of a “leader” who competes with Russia to be “#1” in global fossil fuel production; maximizing the already grotesque profits of the oil and gas industry (which we STILL subsidize); and, fueling a global consumption that becomes an addiction while knowing that the appetite is unsustainable--a little like our opioid epidemic.

Your position is one of PUBLIC SERVICE, NOT PUBLIC SCAMMING. Depend upon us to hold you accountable. We’ll vote for a pepresentative WHO WILL PROTECT OUR HERITAGE, NOT FOR SOMEONE LIKE REP. TIPTON WHO LOOKS THE OTHER WAY AND SUPPORTS THE ADMINISTRATION OVER 90% OF THE TIME! So, Sec. Zinke, get informed about climate change or get out--either would be a public service!!

Thanks,

A. M. Miller

Crestone