Presidential candidates should make energy and public lands in the West a priority

By Chris Wood, Larry Schweiger and Whit Fosburgh
Guest Commentary

Denver Post

The 2012 presidential campaign has been noteworthy for both candidates’ relative silence on the importance of public lands to hunters and anglers. The candidates ignore sportsmen and women at their peril. Hunters and anglers have high voting rates, and represent an important piece of the US economy. Hunting and fishing, for example, pumped more than $75 billion into the national economy last year.

The more than 45 million Americans who hunt and fish depend on public lands for access, quality habitat for fish and wildlife, and abundant hunting and angling opportunity. In a new national poll released last month, hunters and anglers not only believe that conservation is just as important as gun rights, they also strongly believe that the protection of America’s public lands should be given priority over producing oil, gas, and coal on these lands.

In 2010, President Obama’s Department of Interior announced important oil and gas leasing and drilling reforms intended to continue multiple uses of our public lands while safeguarding fish, wildlife, clean air and water. One of the biggest champions of Interior’s promised reforms was Sportsmen for Responsible Energy Development (SFRED), a coalition of more than 500 businesses, groups and individuals led by the National Wildlife Federation, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and Trout Unlimited.

The SFRED coalition came together in 2007 in response to a 260 percent increase in drilling on public lands. Much of the drilling occurred in the Rocky Mountain West, where more than half the nation’s Blue-Ribbon trout fisheries and most of the prime elk and mule deer habitat are found on public lands. From the high-elevation valleys ringed by snow-capped peaks to the sagebrush steppe, these lands are where many Americans catch their first wild trout or track a trophy elk on a cold, clear fall morning.

Unfortunately, implementation of the Interior Department’s onshore oil and gas reforms has been, at best, uneven. Hunters and anglers understand the need for energy resources to fuel our pickups and heat our homes, but energy production should not be allowed to impair the productive capacity of the land for fish, wildlife, and water resources.

The unfulfilled promise of Interior’s reforms make hunters and anglers nervous. Further, proposals by candidate Mitt Romney to double the production of oil and gas from public lands, or worse, sell off the public lands or turn them over to state or local governments, are problematic. The public lands are the birthright of the nation, and of significant social and economic importance to rural and urban communities around the country. Such proposals do not reflect the enormous importance of these lands to people who fish and hunt.

Sportsmen and women understand that not every president can be as passionate an outdoorsman as Theodore Roosevelt. We do expect, however, that candidates for president understand the importance of keeping public lands in public hands while also acting on the need to balance energy development with abundant fish and wildlife populations, clean air and water, and recreational opportunities that include hunting and fishing. Both candidates would do well to listen to sportsmen and women.

Chris Wood is the president and CEO of Trout Unlimited. Larry Schweiger is president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. Whit Fosburgh is president and CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.