Pence Makes Conservative Case for Free Market Environmentalism, True Conservation at VP Debate

U.S. emissions have gone down since our exit from the Paris Climate Accord. In fact, emissions decreased 2.1 percent last year. Criteria air pollutant emissions also dropped seven percent since 2017.

Here’s one noteworthy accomplishment flying under the radar: this EPA’s prioritization of Superfund site cleanup, which recently received bipartisan praise. A POLITICO article noted:

The EPA under Trump has showed what it can look like when an administration gets serious about cleaning up long-neglected sites. Some of these activists are voting Republican for the first time in their lives. Some have seen their backyards and communities finally cleaned up because of the Trump administration’s EPA.

“I been a Democrat all my life,” Worley-Jenkins said. “Trump actually gives us money to clean up these sites that have been here forever,” she said. “Obama talked a lot of crap, but did very little. And people don’t realize that. They want to praise him, but he didn’t do nothing. He didn’t do s---.”

True Conservation is Front and Center

VP Pence also highlighted the administration’s work on conservation with respect to public lands—accomplishments that often go unreported or are deliberately misrepresented.

“Just a little while ago, the president signed the [Great American] Outdoors Act, the largest investment in our public lands and public parks in 100 years,” Pence said.

In August, the bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act was signed into law. It’s expected to permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund and address the maintenance backlog plaguing the National Park Service and other Department of Interior (DOI) agency lands. The Associated Press said the bill, if passed, would amount to “most significant conservation legislation enacted in nearly half a century.”

But there’s more.

Since 2017, this administration’s DOI has opened up over four million acres of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) lands for new fishing and hunting opportunities. They relocated the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to Grand Junction, Colorado, to better respond to needs out West (where 90 percent of federal lands are found).

The administration intends to fund the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, boost the Florida Everglades, and enhance wetlands restoration efforts. It has equally prioritized expanding big game migration corridors, Endangered Species Act improvements, and expanding or constructing new outdoor shooting ranges, among many goals.

And for recreational anglers, they got a boost with the Modern Fish Act.

Conclusion

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem recently told me, “I think that maybe us, as conservatives, just need to talk about it [conservation] more ‘cause we’re doing it every day; we just don’t tell our story very well.”

She’s correct.

For years, the Republican Party and the conservative movement played defense. Even more problematic: some activists offered a milquetoast plan or repackaging of radical environmentalist policies under a GOP banner.

Both approaches were shortsighted and unacceptable. Thankfully, the tide is now turning.

VP Pence, albeit briefly, conveyed the conservative case for balanced use, environmental stewardship, true conservation, and an all-of-the-above energy policy.

Free market solutions can correct environmental problems. Public lands have multiple uses. And yes, it’s possible to conserve wild places without onerous regulations.