The NYT reports (not paywalled) that djt is opening vast amounts of US forest land to environmental rape for profit:
Trump Administration to End Protections for 58 Million Acres of National Forests
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the Clinton-era rule barring road construction and logging was outdated and “absurd”
The Trump administration said on Monday that it would open up 58 million acres of back country in national forests to road construction and development, removing protections that had been in place for a quarter century.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced plans to repeal the 2001 “roadless rule” that had preserved the wild nature of nearly a third of the land in national forests in the United States. Ms. Rollins said the regulation was outdated.
“Once again, President Trump is removing absurd obstacles to common-sense management of our natural resources by rescinding the overly restrictive roadless rule,” Ms. Rollins said in a statement. She said the repeal “opens a new era of consistency and sustainability for our nation’s forests.”
If one is concerned about protecting the environment and lands the US owns, what is “absurd”, actually outrageous, is corrupt MAGA thugs telling us that opening protected forests to rape and pillage for profit constitutes a new era of “consistency and sustainability.” What a pack of insulting, kleptocratic MAGA lies.
In fact, this is just another transfer of wealth and power from the public and the public interest, to special interests. Who pays for building the roads for private tree harvesting companies to use to get to our trees? Taxpayers. How much do private tree harvesting companies pay for the trees they take and make profit from? Not enough to pay for the roads us idiot taxpayers paid to build the access roads. Annual loss is ~$1 billion/year to the US Forest Service.[1]
Not only is the public and public interest being lied to and ripped off by MAGA kleptocrats and criminals, they are forcing us to pay them to screw us. What benefit do we get? I asked Pxy:
Q2: Given (1) how MAGA and Trump operate rhetorically (mendacious and demagogic) and politically, (2) how much dark money in politics there was in the 2024 elections, and (3) how corrupt MAGA elites and Trump are operating in our pay-to-play political system, make a rough estimate of costs and benefits to the special interests who will benefit and the public, e.g., ~90% of benefits and ~10% of costs flow to the special interests who will harvest trees and ~90% of costs and ~10% of benefits will flow to the public and public interest. It is understood that this will be an estimate, but a reasonable, fact-based estimate is the only possibility given that MAGA, Trump and special interests seeking favors and advantages operate in as much secrecy, deceit and lies as they can possibly get away with. Fact check your data sources and provide links. Minimize all biases as much as possible.A2: Executive Summary: Based on available financial data and the documented patterns of corruption and dark money influence in the Trump administration, the distribution of costs and benefits from forest deprotection policies appears heavily skewed toward private timber interests at public expense. The evidence suggests approximately 85% of benefits flow to special interests while they bear only 5% of costs, with the public bearing 95% of costs while receiving just 15% of benefits 1 2 3.
Both Qs&As in their entireties are at this link, which is open to anyone.
Footnote:
1. One source comments on the cost to us taxpayers: Recreation has replaced logging as the golden egg of the national forest system. While the extensive logging practices lose $1 billion a year, recreation based in national forests provides $111 billion per year to the country’s gross domestic product. And that’s according to the U.S. Forest Service’s own study, which also declares only 3% of jobs in rural communities are linked to logging on public land, while 75% of jobs in rural communities come from recreation based on public lands. Recreation contributes 30 times more income to the nation’s economy and creates 38 times more jobs than logging. Yet current Forest Service policy** still favors logging over recreation.
** Forest Service policy is now MAGA kleptocracy policy -- it's the new normal!!
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corner of Pxy responses