Sierra Club Slams Trump Plan to Carve Up Yosemite for Private Developer

This one is not about home energy upgrades, but here's what's happening. According to a new investigation, the Trump administration has spent more than a year quietly pushing the National Park Service to hand over land inside Yosemite National Park so a private developer can build a road connecting the developer's own property to park land. An appraisal of the land is already underway. The plan revives a decades-old proposal for a private road through Yosemite that the Park Service had rejected before, and that the Sierra Club helped defeat in federal court back in 2012.

The Sierra Club has come out against the plan. Its executive director, Loren Blackford, called it a "corrupt giveaway" that breaks a commitment to protect Yosemite for the public dating back to Abraham Lincoln, and said the group will fight it. The news also comes just days after the National Park Service marked its 110th anniversary and after public statements from Trump pledging to protect national parks.

There is no rebate, deadline, or program change here that affects your home or energy bills. This is a land-use and conservation dispute over one of the country's national parks, not an energy-efficiency or utility story. If you follow public lands issues, it is worth watching for further developments, but it has no bearing on weatherization programs, heat pump incentives, or other home upgrade rebates covered here.