Trump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’ must not again threaten Yosemite, Sequoia parks

Trump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’ must not again threaten Yosemite, Sequoia parks | Opinion

When Donald Trump was president in 2019, he attempted to open up 1 million acres of federal land near Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks to fracking.

The Sierra Club and other environmental groups sued the federal government to block the fracking proposal. Among their arguments was that the oil exploration and production would cause air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley, which already has some of the dirtiest air in the nation.

The plaintiffs also said the government used incomplete environmental studies to approve the land leases.

Fracking is a process that uses water, chemicals and sand to break rock and unlock oil deposits. It is highly polluting, creating air, water and land impacts, as well as habitat loss and endangering Native American resources.

Three years later, community and conservation groups that had joined together to oppose the fracking settled the lawsuit with the government. The federal Bureau of Land Management suspended any new leases on the lands adjacent to the parks that had been identified for fracking. It agreed to redo the environmental studies.

Now, with Republican presidential candidate Trump promising to “drill, baby, drill” if he wins election to the White House, a new threat to the iconic national parks becomes possible once again.

What was a bad idea then remains a horrible one today. Trump’s thoughtless oil production proposals must have no place in California’s unique environment.

Beauty of Yosemite, Sequoia

Yosemite, the glacier-carved valley of iconic granite formations like Half Dome and El Capitan, had 4 million visitors last year and is one of America’s most popular national parks.

Sequoia is home to the giant trees that only grow in a 260-mile-long zone between 4,000 and 8,400 feet elevation. Kings Canyon, just to the north of Sequoia, is a rugged, deep canyon carved by a river of that name.

The 275-foot tall General Sherman giant sequoia, center, with its distinguishable canopy underwent a health inspection on May 21 in Sequoia National Park in California. Minimal Sequoia bark beetle damage was found. ERIC PAUL ZAMORA ezamora@fresnobee.com

Also native and rare in the parks is the Sierra Nevada red fox, a mammal near extinction. The California spotted owl and the Pacific fisher, a relative of mink and otter, make the parks their home; both are endangered.

The Yale School of Public Health describes fracking this way: “The process creates vast amounts of wastewater, emits greenhouse gases such as methane, releases toxic air pollutants and generates noise. Studies have shown these gas and oil operations can lead to loss of animal and plant habitats, species decline, migratory disruptions and land degradation. They have also been associated with human health risks.”

Even if oil exploration did not occur in the national parks, drilling on lands near them would still carry potential harm.

Donald Trump: “Drill baby”

This past August Trump told the audience at a rally that, if elected, “On day one, I will tell the frackers and energy workers of Pennsylvania to drill, baby, drill.”

Pennsylvania, the birthplace of commercial oil production, is one of the swing states Trump or Democratic candidate Kamala Harris must win to capture the White House.

A Bloomberg analysis of his energy proposals found that Trump, if elected, will shift from green-energy goals pushed by President Biden to promoting fossil fuel development. In other words, Trump would take America backward.

In his campaign’s Agenda 47 platform, Trump promises to get America out of global climate commitments. “And we will rapidly issue approvals for all worthy energy infrastructure projects with a focus on maximum speed to bring prices down rapidly,” he vows.

For her part, Harris wants to lower greenhouse gas emissions created by burning gas and diesel and keep Biden’s emphasis on expanding electric-vehicle use. She has backed fracking in Pennsylvania. But it is hard to see her supporting such oil exploration near Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon. As a Californian, she knows their importance to the state, and indeed the nation.

Fossil-fuel development’s impact on the warming Earth is itself a critical problem. But keeping the focus on the national parks in Central California, Trump’s push for oil could again pose a danger.

There is only one Yosemite, one Sequoia and Kings Canyon. These places are too precious to be threatened by oil production just for a cheaper gallon of gasoline.

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