Midterm wins give Oregon environmental groups a needed boost
Oregon’s conservation groups are hitting the ground running after the midterm elections last week pushed control of public lands to the left, politically speaking. From reorganizing the U.S. Forest Service and other land management agencies to rolling back key elements of the Endangered Species Act, critics said the Trump administration has gone after public land protections from all sides, citing a need to expand domestic timber and fossil fuel production. Steve Pedery, conservation director for the environmental nonprofit Oregon Wild, said there has been bipartisan rage at what the administration has tried to do. "I think there's a real mandate for the next Congress coming in, not just to try and undo some of that damage but to really leapfrog it and put our parks and public lands in a better, safer place for generations to come," Pedery stressed. Pedery highlighted the Roadless Area Conservation Act , now in Congress, which would counter recent efforts by President Trump's U.S. Department of Agriculture to repeal the popular Roadless Rule . If passed, the act would protect nearly 60 million acres of public wild places across the country from road building and the logging and mining that come with it. Pedery noted
