Commentary: WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Tom Udall is defending public lands – in particular, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – from provisions in the Republicans’ proposed Fiscal Year 2018 budget resolution that would open these special places to development. A provision snuck in the budget proposal, which is being debated on the Senate floor now, would allow 1.5 million acres of the Arctic refuge’s pristine coastal plain to be auctioned off to the highest bidder to sell oil and pay for a tax cut for millionaires and billionaires.
A 1980 law passed thanks to the leadership of Udall’s uncle, former U.S. Rep. Mo Udall, requires that only Congress can decide to open the coastal plain to drilling. Over three decades, Congress has debated and ultimately rejected proposals to drill there. Today, Udall joins several senators in expressing outrage that President Trump and Senate Republicans would try to use a budget gimmick to open the Arctic refuge to development.
Udall is cosponsoring or leading two amendments: the first would strike the provisions from the budget related to the Arctic refuge, and the other would block Republicans from selling off public lands in New Mexico and throughout the country, including national parks, national wildlife refuges, national monuments and other protected lands and waters.
“The fact that this budget resolution would fast-track selling off $1 billion worth of public lands in the name of tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires is an outrage that would make a robber baron blush,” Udall said. “The Arctic Refuge is America’s Serengeti; it’s too sensitive and special to develop. Congress has rejected this idea when oil prices were high and we were dependent on foreign oil. Today, it makes even less sense: Oil prices are low, and the U.S. is already exporting oil. The economics just don’t add up.
“There is no place in a politically motivated budget bill for measures that would allow the sale of America’s treasures--our national parks, our national refuges, our protected public lands, rivers and monuments—to pay for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. My Uncle Mo used to say that ‘politicians sometimes badly underestimate the true feelings that Americans have for the land.’ And I’m urging the Senate today not to underestimate how much Americans value our public lands – they are our heritage, they help sustain our economy in New Mexico and throughout the country, and once they’re damaged, they will never be the same.”