Gratuitous degradation

Has environmental degradation become an intrinsic good to Republicans?

Because how else do you explain the fact that local politicians have convinced the Interior Department to block a deal where an environmental group will buy out grazing permits from ranchers at the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Park in Utah? The environmentalists will be returning a scenic area to native vegetation. The ranchers are only too happy to sell. The only people who are not happy are the Republicans.

And all I want to know is...why? What do they get out of this? Is this purely spite? Or are they so used to screwing the environment that they now do this reflexively and dogmatically?

(Via Erik at Alterdestiny)