What They’re Saying: Gardner, Daines Make “Election Year Ploy” to Cover Up “Terrible” Conservation Records

Vulnerable incumbent Senators Steve Daines and Cory Gardner think their sudden support for a long overdue conservation measure will compensate for the fact that “neither have particularly notable environmental records” — a major reason why the public sees through the election year gimmick. They’ve both voted to cut funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and supported appointees who’ve overseen the largest rollback of protected public lands in U.S. history and dismantled major policies to fight climate change. Take a look: 

HuffPost: In An Election Year, 2 Vulnerable GOP Senators Are Suddenly Conservationists

• Both Daines and Gardner are relatively new to the fight to protect the LWCF, and neither have particularly notable environmental records ― earning lifetime scores from the League of Conservation Voters of 6% and 11%, respectively.

• Supporting Trump and his anti-conservation agenda at seemingly every turn have been Gardner and Daines. Daines even signaled he’d back William Perry Pendley, the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management who has extreme anti-environmental views and spent his career lobbying for the sale of federal lands, if Trump were to officially nominate him for the post.

Missoulian (Opinion): Daines’ conservation conversion charade

• Montana’s junior senator, Steve Daines, is trying to capitalize on the restoration of full funding to the Land and Water Conservation Fund to bolster his terrible conservation record prior to his hotly contested election against Gov. Steve Bullock.

• There’s no question that it’s decades past time for Congress to get its greedy paws off the revenue stream that was intended to bolster conservation of public lands and waters. But weighed against the environmental damage Daines has continually supported, his latest charade is just that — an election year ploy to trick Montanans and garner a few conservation votes.

• Daines’ record on the environment speaks for itself — and undeniably proves Daines’ “conservation conversion” is a charade.

The Daily Sentinel: Gardner expects Senate passage of lands bill, but no CORE add-on

• An effort by Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., to tack a Colorado lands conservation measure onto the bill apparently won’t succeed. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly is not allowing amendments to the measure.

• Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Eli Rosen said in a statement Thursday that Gardner is trying to “greenwash his abysmal environmental record just in time for the election. Gardner has worked in lockstep with President Trump against new Colorado wilderness, to roll back protections for clean air and water, and to undermine efforts to combat climate change. While local leaders in Colorado have worked for more than a decade to pass the CORE Act, Gardner continues to be a puppet for his party leaders and refuses to deliver.”

• The CORE Act combines several previous legislative initiatives. Under it, about 200,000 acres in the Thompson Divide area southwest of Glenwood Springs would be withdrawn from future oil and gas leasing. CORE would designate about 73,000 acres of land as wilderness, including acreage in the San Juan Mountains. It would designate the Camp Hale area, where ski troops trained outside Leadville during World War II, as the first-ever National Historic Landscape, and would formally establish the boundary for the long-existing Curecanti National Recreation Area west of Gunnison.

• The measure has passed the Democrat-controlled House, and Bennet has been pushing for action on it in the Senate.

San Francisco Chronicle: Editorial: Two imperiled GOP senators are rescuing a conservation money pot

• There’s nothing like political desperation to solve stubborn problems. Billions in federal conservation money is moving from orphan status to cherished ideal due largely to Republican worries about losing two Western Senate seats.

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