POLITICS 11/09/2018 06:41 pm ET Conservation groups are hailing the victories as a rebuke of the Trump administration’s policies. By Chris D’Angelo Democrats notched wins in a number of key midterm races out West after running on platforms of protecting public lands and maintaining them under federal control ― victories that conservation groups are celebrating as a repudiation of the Trump administration’s “energy dominance” agenda. The administration’s “deeply unpopular” rollbacks of protected national monuments and its sweeping proposal to open up nearly all U.S. waters to offshore oil and gas development “fueled pro-conservation wins” in states like Nevada, New Mexico and even South Carolina, Matt Lee-Ashley, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said in a statement. “We are seeing an unmistakable pattern of pro-conservation election outcomes in states and districts that are bearing the brunt of the Trump Administration’s attacks on parks, wildlife, and oceans,” he said. Public lands were front and center in the contentious Montana Senate race between incumbent Jon Tester (D) and state auditor Matt Rosendale (R). Though President Donald Trump traveled to Montana four times to campaign for Rosendale, Tester ― a frequent critic of the president ― defeated the self-proclaimed “Trump conservative.” And he did it in a state that Trump carried by 20 percentage points in the 2016 election. In campaign advertisements featuring sportsmen and women with shotguns and fly-fishing rods, Tester’s team touted his record of voting to protect public lands, and pegged Rosendale as an East Coast developer who threatened the state’s wild… [Read full story]
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