Chouinard’s terse response to Congress

In a nutshell, here’s the deal. Patagonia and various GOP officials have been duking it out via twitter and very public homepage statements about the way in which America values, treats, supports, and best uses its sacred public lands.

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It’s a war that has been raging since the beginning of 2017, when Patagonia announced its boycott of the Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City, following Utah’s refusal to step to step up to defend Bears Ears.

Last week, the GOP extended an invitation to Chouinard to come speak his truth about public lands in front of the House National Resources Committee.

Chouinard fired back two paragraphs that essentially says “thanks, but no thanks.”

The letter reads as follows:

Rob Bishop
Chairman
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Natural Resources
1324 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Chairman Bishop and the House Committee on Natural Resources,

I find it disingenuous that after unethically using taxpayers’ resources to call us liars, you would ask me to testify in front of a committee for a matter already decided by the administration and applauded by the Utah delegation just a week ago. A macabre celebration of the largest reduction in public lands in American history. It is clear the House Committee on Natural Resources, like many committees in this failed Orwellian government, is shackled to special interests of oil, gas, and mining and will seek to sell off our public lands at every turn and continue to weaken and denigrate Theodore Roosevelt’s Antiquities Act, which has preserved our treasured public lands for over 100 years.

The American people made it clear in public comments that they want to keep the monuments intact, but they were ignored by Secretary Zinke, your committee, and the administration. We have little hope that you are working in good faith with this invitation. Our positions are clear and public, and we encourage you to read them.

Sincerely,

Yvon Chouinard