Today's GOP is no longer the party of Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, not when the GOP is trying to destroy our heritage!

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Yes, the Republican Party Literally Wants to Eliminate National Parks
By Charles P. Pierce, July 15, 2016

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I missed this when the Republican Party released its platform, but the GOP essentially is calling for the elimination of America's national parks. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer brings us the details on this post-intelligent policy proposal.

The drafters of the national 2016 Republican platform marked the anniversary by calling for a mass sell-off of federal lands in the West, and stepped-up logging in national forests. The platform is a kind of Theodore Roosevelt-in-reverse document, which renounces even policies of Ronald Reagan. Using the 1908 Antiquities Act, Roosevelt created national monuments in spots like the Grand Canyon and the Olympics where state and territorial governments were beholden to mining companies and timber barons. The 2016 GOP platform would require that national monuments be approved by both Congress and state legislatures.

Knuckling the legacies of both TR and Saint Ronnie? That doesn't sound too conservative to me.

Republicans have helped give us treasured places: Ronald Reagan signed the Washington and Oregon Wilderness bills, and legislation creating the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area. But very different Republicans are now in charge. Dan Evans used money from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund to preserve parks and recreation lands across Washington. He is cofounder, with ex-Democratic Gov. Mike Lowry, of the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition. Back in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, the GOP-run House took up a bill that slashes the LWCF by 30 percent. Don't do this, "This really matters," said Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., opposing the cuts.

This should be a matter of great public debate. Most Americans don't own timber companies, but most of them love their national parks and, frankly, most Americans realize that an open-pit mine and/or a cleared mountain hillside aren't going to bring in those tourist dollars. Nobody's going to pack up the family in the minivan and drive 11 hours to look at an oil field. Well, Jim Inhofe, maybe.

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