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Protesters In Denver Push Back Against Proposed NEPA Changes

Tim Wolf / Wilderness Workshop

 

Dozens of protestors gathered in downtown Denver Tuesday to fight the Trump administration’s effort to scale back a major environmental protection law. KDNK’s Scott Franz has more.

 

Some dressed as polar bears and one carried a cardboard cutout of an elk outside of a public hearing on the proposed changes to the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.

Anne Esson of Vail is worried the effort will clear the way for homes to be built on elk habitat in Colorado. ESSON: When you’re talking about threat to bighorn herds or to the elk population in Eagle County, it is imperative that we have a chance to speak up for these critters.

The Trump administration says environmental
reviews required under NEPA only delay important road, bridge, and dam projects for years, and some should be exempt from them. Environmentalists and state officials say the rules protect wildlife and water.

Scott Franz is a government watchdog reporter and photographer from Steamboat Springs. He spent the last seven years covering politics and government for the Steamboat Pilot & Today, a daily newspaper in northwest Colorado. His reporting in Steamboat stopped a police station from being built in a city park, saved a historic barn from being destroyed and helped a small town pastor quickly find a kidney donor. His favorite workday in Steamboat was Tuesday, when he could spend many of his mornings skiing untracked powder and his evenings covering city council meetings. Scott received his journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is an outdoorsman who spends at least 20 nights a year in a tent. He spoke his first word, 'outside', as a toddler in Edmonds, Washington. Scott visits the Great Sand Dunes, his favorite Colorado backpacking destination, twice a year. Scott's reporting is part of Capitol Coverage, a collaborative public policy reporting project, providing news and analysis to communities across Colorado for more than a decade. Fifteen public radio stations participate in Capitol Coverage from throughout Colorado.
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