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Traveler's View: Monument Review Underscores Problem With Politics

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Jenny Creek in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Oregon/Friends of Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop maintain that they are looking to right problems with the Antiquities Act and how it's used to designate national monuments, but at the end of the day they're simply underscoring how politically divisive this country and Congress have become and are working to cater to special factions.

That's not to say we should be surprised or that the Trump administration is the first to infuse its political views and desires to manipulate public lands. Presidents long have used their powers to curry favor. President Bill Clinton, rather than face the ire of Utahns, actually went to the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park in 1996 to designate the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument ... in Utah.

Claims by Messieurs Zinke and Bishop that the "process" by which Presidents Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton used the Antiquities Act is broken will stand up only if they can propose a process that isn't swayed by politics. But their arguments that public input wasn't adequately pursued by the Obama administration when it debated national monument designations are disingenous. And what neither mentioned during this review was that Republicans, often led by Mr. Bishop, often stood in the way of public support for many of these monuments.

  • Four years ago, a group of Las Cruces, New Mexico, locals was nearing the ten-year mark of a campaign to have a national monument created in their backyard on land managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and which had eight wilderness study areas located on it. The group requested a hearing on the matter before Mr. Bishop's House committee, which he denied. In the end, it took a signature by President Obama to create Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument.
  • In northern New Mexico, businesses and locals in Taos were strongly in support of Rio Grand del Norte National Monument.
  • Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine was overwhelmingly supported by voters in the state's 2nd Congressional District in which the monument lies, and recently the state's attorney general told the Trump administration not to alter the monument.
  • In May 2015 nearly 100 scientists spoke out in favor of the expansion of Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Oregon, and surrounding businesses and town councils were in favor of it, as well.
  • Environmentalists and tribes worked to see Gold Butte in Nevada designated.
  • As for Mr. Zinke's interest in public input, he visited just eight of the 27 national monuments up for review.

On Thursday, after Secretary Zinke's summary was released, in addition to his comments that he would recommend reductions in some monuments, many groups that felt their views weren't being adequately considered spoke out.

“As a fishing guide for the last 21 years, I am distraught by Secretary Zinke’s disregard for fish and outdoor recreation. Among the national monuments we’ve heard he is eviscerating is the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in southern Oregon," said Bob Rees, founder of the Northwest Guides and Anglers Association. "Shrinking the monument is a slap in the face to Oregon's hunters and anglers looking for more access and productivity from public lands, not less. He has gone too far.”

The association, comprised of roughly three dozen guiding businesses, could certainly be considered a local group, one of those the Interior secretary supposedly wanted input from.

The list could go on, but suffice to say public input wasn't overlooked by presidents when monuments were designated. What Mr. Zinke and Mr. Bishop are harping about is that special interests they believe should have priority didn't carry the day. And if there's a problem with process, as Mr. Bishop maintains, it's a problem that's not easily going to be solved, for there are always political interests on both sides of an issue.

That's been clearly demonstrated by the Trump administration's moves to gain better control over how the National Park Service does business. Earlier this month the administration ordered the agency to end its ban on the sale of disposable water bottles in the park system, and then directed acting-Park Service Director Michael Reynolds to spike Director's Order 100, which updated the agency’s guidelines for stewardship and reaffirmed its “predominant” duty to protect natural and cultural resources. 

The pendulum is swinging friends, and not to middle ground. No, it's way overshooting moderation, which some, no doubt, would claim of the Obama administration's public lands decisions.

What is needed from this administration -- from any administration -- is transparency, clarity, and righteousness. And when it comes to public lands, administrations must remember that all Americans own those lands, not just special interests. And what can't be overlooked is that controversy doesn't mean a designation was a mistake. 

"In fact, even Theodore Roosevelt's first proclamation of the roughly 1,200 acre Devil's Tower in Wyoming was controversial," Secretary Zinke acknowledged in his brief summary of his findings. "Since that time, the use of the Act has largely been viewed as an overwhelming American success story and today includes almost 200 of America's greatest treasures."

In the end, perhaps the best solution would remove Congress and the president from the equation. Appoint a standing committee of scientists, historians, and everyday people to review monument proposals and say yea or nay. That might not be the perfect solution, but the current process, which can change wildly with an administration's political persuasion, is indeed in need of a fix.

Comments

Thank you, Kurt!

 


I sure hope we get some info on the amount of people commenting that the admin should leave monuments alone.


Zinke is trying to play a semantic game - leave the names of the monuments intact, but open up protected areas toi energy extraction. Disgusting.


Kurt--

It's not just All Americans who own the parks: all FUTURE Americans own them, too.  To quote Steve Fancy "Most of our statkeholders are not even born yet."  That's the difference between short-term exploitation which _might_ provide market-rate revenues to the treasury, and management to leave them "unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations".

 

Argalite--

There are various numbers put out that well over 90% of the comments were in favor of retaining the National Monuments in question.  Zinke acknowledged as much in his 2 page summary: "Comments received were overwhelmingly in favor of maintaining existing monuments and demonstrated a well-orchestrated national campaign organized by multiple organizations."

https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/uploads/monument-report-summary.pdf (Kurt also linked to his copy of it).

 


Let's read Zinke's comment a second time with a little emphasis on part of it.  Doing that tells us a lot.

 "Comments received were overwhelmingly in favor of maintaining existing monuments and demonstrated a well-orchestrated national campaign organized by multiple organizations."

Thus, Zinke and other Drumpfians may claim that only a few people were able to artificially pack the ballots, thus the process can't be trusted and therefore, need not be considered. 

 


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