Voters in the Mountain West like their public lands, and they don’t want them sold off or transferred to states, according to a comprehensive poll released Tuesday.

By more than three-to-one, voters across seven states said they prefer that the Trump administration protects water, air quality, wildlife and access for recreation on public lands rather than prioritize producing more domestic energy by making more public lands available for oil and gas drilling.

The Colorado College State of the Rockies Project’s Conservation in the West Poll surveyed voters in seven Western states – Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

The bipartisan poll was conducted jointly by Republican pollster Lori Weigel of Public Opinion Strategies and Democratic pollster Dave Metz of Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates. It’s the seventh consecutive year Colorado College has polled westerners on public lands and conservation issues.

“As leadership changes hands in Washington, D.C., and Congress votes in new budget rules removing any monetary value from public lands, voters in the Mountain West are sending a clear statement that they do not want to see a dramatic change of course when it comes to national public lands,” said Walt Hecox, an Economics professor emeritus at Colorado College and founder of the State of the Rockies Project.

For instance, according to the poll results, voters of all stripes and across the region said they approve of President Donald Trump’s position opposing transfer of federal lands to state governments by wide margins.

“We have to be great stewards of this land,” said Trump on the campaign trail. He said he plans to follow in the footsteps of President Theodore Roosevelt, who established the country’s first national parks and national monuments.

Sixty-three percent of voters said they approved of Trump’s position when it was characterized that way, while 27 percent disapproved.

Overwhelming majorities of those surveyed said they support maintaining a federal methane rule that requires oil and gas producers on public lands to prevent leaks and reduce flares, with 81 percent across all the states supporting the rule and 13 percent opposing it. Strikingly, Republicans back the rule – under assault by GOP members of Congress – by an even wider margin than Democrats, with 84 percent in support and just 10 percent wanting the rule scrapped.

“In the end, having this kind of data about what people in the Rockies really think and value is invaluable,” Hecox said during a conference call Tuesday to discuss the poll results.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock sounded a similar note on the call.

“Public lands are part of our birthright and our heritage,” he said. “They belong to the entire country.” He added that more than 1,000 people had turned out recently at a rally at the state capitol to show support for Montana’s public lands and opposition to state or federal proposals to sell them.

Voters surveyed said they oppose turning over federal public lands to state control, with 56 percent rejecting the proposal. The pollsters noted that wide majorities shared this view in every state except Utah, where voters were closely divided. Among Colorado voters, opposition was even stronger, with 60 percent saying they oppose transferring public lands over to states, while 31 percent said they supported the proposal.

In Colorado, which has 24 million acres of federal public lands, Gov. John Hickenlooper signed legislation last year creating Colorado Public Lands Day on the third Saturday in May. It will be celebrated for the first time this year.

Last year, the Colorado legislature passed bipartisan legislation declaring a day to celebrate national public lands, becoming the first state in the nation to do so. Beginning this year, the third saturday in May will be Colorado Public Lands Day.

Almost two thirds of the voters surveyed oppose allowing oil and gas companies to purchase additional rights to drill on public lands, with nearly half strongly opposing it. A similar share opposes allowing more coal mining on public lands. At the same time, voters had strong support for allowing more wind and solar energy production on public lands.

Seventy-four percent of Colorado voters say they consider themselves “conservationists,” up from 65 percent who said the same last year. Twenty-one percent said they wouldn’t apply the term to themselves, down from 30 percent a year ago. The share was similar across the states surveyed, with 70 percent of all voters in the region claiming the label.

Unsurprisingly, Coloradans like their outdoors. By enormous margins, survey respondents said they think Colorado’s quality of life and opportunities for outdoor recreation and spending time in nature are better than elsewhere in the country.

Colorado voters also said by a wide margin that they think the state is headed in the right direction while, by an almost identical margin, they believe the country has gotten off on the wrong track. Sixty-three percent of respondents said they feel optimistic about Colorado’s path, the same percentage that said the United States has gone astray. Twenty-eight percent think Colorado is on the wrong track, and 25 percent said the country is going in the right direction.

The poll surveyed 400 registered voters in each of the Western states in late December 2016 and early January 2017, the pollsters said. The margin of error is plus-or-minus 2.74 percent for the Mountain West states and plus-or-minus 4.9 percent for each individual state.

– ernest@coloradostatesman.com