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GOP Gubernatorial Candidate In Wyoming Would Open Yellowstone National Park To Grazing, Mining

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Wyoming long has had an independent streak in its right-leaning politics, but a position on federal lands staked out by a Republican gubernatorial candidate still might cause some in the state to catch their breath: Taylor Haynes would open Yellowstone National Park to mining and grazing.

Mr. Haynes, whose diverse background includes degrees in urology and mechanical engineering and time spent ranching, said if elected one of his first tasks would be to send letters to the federal land-management agencies telling them to turn their lands over to the state and get their operations out of Wyoming.

“Then, in whichever county they attempt to have any official activity, they will be arrested for impersonating a law enforcement officer in Wyoming,” he told the Casper Star-Tribune last week.

The 68-year-old Republican bases his plan on the grounds that the U.S. Constitution allows the federal government to own just 10 miles of land, in Washington, D.C., for offices and operations, and that the state could do a much better job of managing the federal lands.

How successful would Mr. Haynes' proposal be in terms of the state's tourism industry? Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks likely would fare well for their iconic status. But other park units in the state? Do you remember Shoshone Cavern National Monument? The site outside Cody, Wyoming, was designated in 1909 by presidential proclamation, and given to Cody in 1954. Have you heard of it?

Before Mr. Haynes can put his plan to work, he has to win the GOP gubernatorial nomination next month (current Gov. Matt Mead, a Republican, is seeking re-election), and then the general election in November.

 

Comments

Do you guys ever lighten up?? LOL


Usually, all that is needed to 'disparage' is to quote. The next step, generally, is for the public figure to sputter that "I was taken out of context". [Most often the 'context' is that the public figure had been quoted when speaking to what s/he thought was a tame and agreeable audience].

 

As far as I know, Reagan never had an original thought. I met the man several times, and in addition to orangish hair, the thing that always struck me was that he had grown up in an industry where he was provided scripts, and that never changed until he quietly settled into Alzheimers.


I don't disparage ALL conservative figures.  For example, there was, uh, let's see . . . . well I really had a lot of respect for . . . .  uh,  yeah . . . . . let's see it was . . . .

Hmmm.  Gonna have to think about this . . . .


The late U.S. Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyoming, was a great advocate for Grand Teton National Park.


Ah, HA!  Thank you, Kurt.  That's the guy I was trying to think of . . . . ;-}

Then there was Senator Bob Bennett who was dumped by the Utah Tea Party so Mike Lee could be elected to shut down the government and shout, "NO!" every fifteen minutes.

Jon Huntsman is another respectable conservative who comes to mind.

I'll keep working on it.


This is the problem again with labels. They don't tell us a thing. President Obama is allegedly a progressive Democrat, and yet is giving the public lands away in gulps. Solar and wind power are his favorite recipients; at General Electric, Jeffrey Immelt leads the president around by the ear--and brags about it openly. And exactly what would Hillary Clinton do for parks? Her hubby opened up the Ozarks to Tyson's Foods, so much so that The New York Times did a three-part article about it in 1992. Allegedly, Tyson's polluted half of the streams throughout the region, again, because Arkansas's environmental laws were so lax. Then Bill Clinton becomes president and does what--establishes a few national monuments and all is forgiven. But I already own those lands--they are already public lands. Changing the name of them does not necessarily guarantee their lasting protection, either.

As every good historian knows, you can't find out what is going on just by reading a newspaper or listening to the hairdos on tee-vee. You have to look behind the curtain and see what the Wizard has up his sleeve. Right now, the biggest Wizard we have in the land is President Obama. He thinks that another speech is all it takes. Governance, however, is not about speech-making. It is rather about getting along with the people that hate you most.

The archives are filled with the reminder that great Republicans have also stood foursquare for our national parks. I can give you chapter and verse if you wish, but a good deal of it is in my books. It is just there without the labels so you will have to look the labels up. But since the Park Service centennial is in the offing, consider Senator Reed Smoot of Utah. Mormon and a conservative Republican--and accused of exaccerbating the Great Depression by supporting the Smoot-Hawley Tariff (1930)--he nonetheless stood by his proposed Bureau of National Parks through the entirety of its uphill fight in Congress. And of course the Republicans have Theodore Roosevelt--still the greatest evironmental president of them all.

It's just that a Republican "then" is not like a Republican "now." The point is: We can say the same for the Democrats, including Stewart Udall, who as a Democratic Interior Secretary proposed the damming of Grand Canyon in 1963 even as he released his best-selling book, The Quiet Crisis. Puzzled? Not if you stop to remember that he was from Arizona and was forever Republican in his beliefs when it came to WATER.

All politicians will serve their constitutents, and that goes for the liberals, too. So, the next time you want to take one another's heads off about who is really "pure," remember Pogo who said it best: "We have met the enemy, and he is us." The enemy of the parks today is the American people who simply can't seem to govern themselves without attacking what they used to know to hold dear.

 

 


Alfred--

In relation to water, who was it that said Barry Goldiwater "opposed creeping socialism until it crept into Arizona?"

Rick

 


I forget, but it fits. Here in Washington State, our electeds never met a military base they didn't like--or another huge subsidy for Boeing, just this year a $7 billion "tax break" because the company was threatening to move the 777 wing assembly to California. If the mafia threatened that, we would call it extortion. Oh, yes, and the CEO, making 276 times the average employee, thinks the employees are "overpaid." Don't wait for the next Godfather movie. Just watch what is happening in "progressive," "liberal," "Democratic," Washington State.


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