The House Natural Resources Committee is pushing back against a claim by Patagonia that President Trump "stole" land from Americans by moving to shrink two national monuments in Utah.
It's no secret that U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop dislikes The Antiquities Act and was thrilled to see President Trump move to dismantle the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah. So it shouldn't be a great surprise that the House Natural Resources Committee that he chairs has publicly attacked Patagonia, which opposes the president's move.
Last week Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke branded the outdoor wear company as a "liar" for running ads saying President Trump stole land from the American people by issuing a proclamation that cut 2 million acres, combined, from the two monuments. And on Friday the Natural Resources Committee used its Twitter feed to claim that "Patagonia is Lying To You."
"A corporate giant hijacking our public lands debate to sell more products to wealthy elitist urban dwellers from New York to San Francisco," the tweet added.
Perhaps this shouldn't be surprising in the brash, pushback, smack down political world the Trump administration has ushered in, but the tweet has raised more than a few eyebrows.
"When a federal government official publicly calls you a liar on an official social media account, without any due process whatsoever, the first thing you should do is call a lawyer. The second thing you should do is find out the name of the official who posted this tweet," wrote Walter Shaub, who formerly directed the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, in a tweet of his own.
"I don’t know if there’s any legal recourse, but I hope Patagonia has a law firm research the issue," he added. "The federal govt officially and publicly calling a company a liar for political reasons is a bizarre and dangerous departure from civic norms. It’s also decidedly anti-free market."
The matter raises the question about whether it's appropriate for a federal government entity to publicly attack a company. What will be interesting to see is whether it boosts sales for Patagonia, as President Trump's criticism of Nordstrom earlier this year did for that company.
Comments
As I figured, what you stated as a fiat fact was your conjecture and accusation, and not identified as such until called on it.
I've never been paid by the word myself, but I do remember what happens when you tell a college student that their paper must have X number of words.
What paper, Rick? You mean the one students buy off the Internet? Like, you know, I mean, how do students, now spending nine hours a day on their "devices," have any sense of good writing at all? You would have been so lucky to have me assigning your papers, because yes, I expected my students to read, write, and speak at the college level. Forgive me for having a standard that meant something. Certainly you are not alone.
As for Mr. Obama, I have not "accused" him of anything. He played the politics and he won. Just don't put him on the level of a Theodore Roosevelt. Our public lands are the poorer for Mr. Obama's presidency, unless of course you believe that the desert is just a wasteland. Anyone who can "save" Bears Ears should have understood the hypocrisy of putting one landscape above another. Or is that too many words for you again?
To be fair, Alfred, Obama created or expanded 34 national monuments, protecting an additional 550 million acres. He's certainly no TR--or FDR--and he seems to have prioritized "green energy" over wilderness, but I'm not sure by what metric we can say our public lands "are the poorer" for his presidency. At worst, I'd say it's a mixed bag, but one that looks pretty good given what we're currently seeing from the Executive branch.
Certainly, the current Executive branch is another mess. But why does that suddenly apply universally? Could it be, as Daniel Henninger writes in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL this morning, because "American politics is dividing now into a series of concentric circles, not unlike Dante's circles of Hell."
"Forget your political biases," he continues, "which impair comprehension in direct proportion to their intensity. Clarity comes only to those willing to see all this for what it is: a crude death struggle for power. . . He won, we lost. Now we have to win. How we do that is irrelevant." The shoe could just as easily be on the other foot. She won, we lost. How we win back our power is irrelevant.
As advocates for our public lands, we find ourselves caught in the middle. Actually, George W. Bush started the phenomenon of racking up "points" by setting aside millions of acres of ocean as national monuments.
My point is: We can't get comfortable cheering for "our" side when both sides are so sick. Had she won and he lost, we would still be facing down Dante's Inferno, but who reads THAT these days?
Agreed.
Hesitate to comment here, but, Alfred, I agree to the extent that the politics does become a struggle for power (money). My less than expert knowledge of history tells me politics is tumultuous, has been for most of our history. However there are major differences in the current party positions on many issues. The recent election in Alabama just one example. As advocates for our environment and public lands, I do not think we are caught in the middle.
Ron, the election results in Alabama had nothing to do with politics.
Val Bagley, cartoonist at Salt Lake Tribune just came up with another gem:
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2017/12/15/bagley-cartoon-bargain-b...
This one really captures the Utah legislature's public lands ethic.