The Extremist Campaign to Blame Immigrants for U.S. Environmental Problems
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With growing frequency over the past four years, right-wing pundits, policymakers, and political operatives have fiercely and furiously blamed immigrants for the degradation and decline of nature in the United States. William Perry Pendley, who temporarily ran the U.S. Bureau of Land Management under former President Donald Trump, saw “immigration as one of the biggest threats to public lands,” according to an agency spokesperson.
1 A handful of right-wing anti-immigration zealots, including Joe Guzzardi, have repeatedly misused data published by the Center for American Progress on nature loss to make xenophobic arguments for anti-immigration policies.
U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan said President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, did the right thing by suspending new oil and gas drilling on federally owned lands and waters,
U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan said President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, did the right thing by suspending new oil and gas drilling on federally owned lands and waters,
Focus The New York Times – January 27
President Biden on Wednesday signed a series of executive actions, ranging from pausing new federal oil leases to electrifying the government’s vast fleet of vehicles, casting the moves as being about job creation as much as they are about the climate crisis. Biden said his directives would reserve 30 percent of federal land and water for conservation purposes, make climate policy central to national security decisions, and build out a network of electric-car charging stations nationwide. With respect to leases of federal land for oil and gas drilling, Biden’s executive orders direct the Interior Department “to the extent consistent with applicable law” to “pause” leases pending a review of the climate change effects. The orders also call for increasing renewable energy production on those lands and waters, with the goal of doubling offshore wind energy production by 2030.