Coloradans overwhelmingly support public lands at the state, county and municipal levels. The annual Colorado College Conservation in the West Poll indicates 72% of Westerners prefer public land conservation over energy development.
Rep. Jeff Hurd promised he will not sell our public lands and believes in local stakeholder engagement. However, he’s introduced the Productive Public Lands Act, legislation that revokes recently finalized Bureau of Land Management Resource Management Plans that were the product of years of negotiations with local governments, agencies, businesses, tribal nations and public input.
Nine RMPs will replace carefully crafted plans with “alternatives” in the outdated 1976 Federal Land, Policy, and Management Act and override the public process. Why expand the oil and gas industry’s access to 2.3 million acres of federal land in Colorado?
How does Hurd justify leading this legislation to gut public lands, destroy crucial environmental and logging concerns, decimate management plans crafted for big game habitat corridors, eliminate protections for endangered Gunnison sage grouse, and undermine decades of collaboration and investment in public land conservation to “put us on a path to energy dominance?” What if we don’t want to walk that path?
Is Hurd, who left an oil and gas law firm to run for Congress in 2024, able to determine what constituents want? His field office in Durango is locked, and only a House of Representatives seal and camera indicate it’s his office; there is no name plate or listing on the building directory. I’m struggling to find answers.
Gretchen Wilson
Durango
