Melanie Stansbury: “I stand today to also respectfully oppose H.R. 3397, or what my colleagues across the aisle are calling the WEST Act. I…”

“I stand today to also respectfully oppose H.R. 3397, or what my colleagues across the aisle are calling the WEST Act. I, too, have great respect for the chair and for the sponsor of this bill, and especially for the farmers, ranchers, and land stewards who were just referenced, but I vehemently disagree with the premise of what this bill and the underlying rule do and how it was characterized. This bill would overturn a long-overdue administrative action to protect our public lands, wildlife, and cultural sites and access to the outdoors, with the intent of tipping the scales back to a time when extractive industries--oil and gas companies, multinational mining corporations, and developers--had the upper hand in dictating the uses of our public lands. Like so many efforts by the GOP this Congress to chip away at our rights, unfortunately, this bill seeks to undermine and strip away the Bureau of Land Management's recently released final public lands rule, which establishes a framework to protect our Nation's public lands and ensure healthy ecosystems, waters, and wildlife, and a historic effort to protect the special places and cultural sites that are so important to our communities, their identities, and who they are, especially for our Tribal communities.…”