In its rush Thursday to take the rest of the summer off, Congress left behind a pile of unfinished work, some of which reaches into the National Park System. There's the Interior appropriations bill, which would roll back some environmental protections, and a controversial Public Lands Initiative for Utah that quickly drew fire. And then there's the draft platform for the Republican Convention, which holds freight aimed at fleecing federal lands and tying presidents' hands.

If there's any consolation for onlookers, it's that the House-approved Interior bill likely will be changed before the Senate agrees to it, and that the PLI legislation drafted by Reps. Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz, both Utah Republicans, likely won't see passage in its current form, either. As for the GOP platform, it will provide some great political theater next week during the convention.

Interior Appropriations

The measure, passed Thursday on a party-line vote, "includes dozens of policy riders attacking bedrock environmental protections for our lands, air, water, and wildlife—including a number of riders that would reverse important steps towards keeping the fossil fuels beneath our public lands and waters in the ground," said Friends of the Earth.

"Once again, GOP extremism has made the basic task of funding the government into a polluter-friendly circus. From fossil fuel extraction on our public lands to the gutting of clean air protections, this bill is Christmas in July for polluters. It is a sick joke, not a spending bill," said Lukas Ross, the group's Earth Climate and Energy Campaigner.

At the National Parks Conservation Association, the park advocacy group applauded the House for increasing funding for the National Park Service, but criticized the House for adding "many damaging policy amendments that threaten park resources" to the measure."

“The last thing our national parks need in their centennial year is legislation that weakens their environmental protections, threatens their resources and hampers rangers’ ability to do their jobs," said John Garder, NPCA's director of budget and appropriations. "But today the House of Representatives chose to approve just that. While we commend appropriators for increasing funding for national parks, as well as those members who worked hard to try and remove these harmful policy riders, the passage of this bill will only add to the challenges our national parks already face.

“We’d be better off with a Continuing Resolution than this bill, despite the increase in park funding lawmakers secured for our national parks. That is nothing less than a failure for our national parks and for all those who visit them. They deserve better than this," he added. "I hope that when members of Congress visit national parks during their centennial next month, they will see just how critical parks are to preserving America’s most treasured natural, historic and cultural sites. And I hope they return to Washington committed to protecting our national parks and not undercutting them.”

At Defenders of Wildlife, President and CEO Jamie Rappaport Clark said that it "is abundantly clear that the House of Representatives has stopped treating the Interior appropriations bill as a serious legislative funding measure, and has chosen instead to use it as a Trojan horse to ferry controversial, anti-wildlife riders through Congress."

"A number of new riders block protections for some of our nation’s most imperiled species and undermine sound management of national wildlife refuges that have been established as havens for many of America’s most treasured species," she added."Instead of dismantling safeguards for wildlife and public lands, the House of Representatives should be voting for a clean budget that provides adequate funding to manage our nation’s precious natural heritage.

“These riders aren’t just an assault on wildlife conservation in our country: they’re poison pills. Their inclusion in any final funding bill also greatly increases the chances of a government shutdown. The administration already issued a Statement of Administration Policy warning that if President Obama were presented with this bill, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto it. Ideological attacks on bedrock environmental laws have absolutely no place in this critically important legislation.”

According to Defenders, one of the riders would "delist all gray wolves in the continental United States by 2017. Another rider blocks federal funding to recover critically endangered Mexican gray wolves and keeps them out of the habitats they need to recover; a guaranteed recipe for extinction. The Mexican gray wolf is one of the most endangered mammals in North America. Equally nefarious, another rider makes it harder for American citizens to challenge violations of the Endangered Species Act in court."

Among other riders, the group said, one "would block federal conservation measures for wolves, bears and other carnivores on national wildlife refuges and preserves in Alaska, opening approximately 100 million acres of public lands to scientifically indefensible practices to reduce these species’ population numbers. Another bars a vital new rule that would update inadequate 50-year old regulations to manage non-federal oil and gas drilling on refuge lands and waters. A third rider would prevent implementation of a management plan for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which recommends wilderness designation to permanently protect core areas of this crown jewel refuge."

Utah Public Lands Initiative

A revised Public Lands Initiative released Thursday by Reps. Bishop and Chaffetz drew widespread condemnation from groups as diverse as the Evangelical Environmental Network and Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship to the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and The Wilderness Society.

“If Congressman Bishop was serious about passing this bill, he wouldn’t have introduced it the day before Congress leaves for summer vacation," said Western Values Project Executive Director Chris Saeger. "He is playing a political game concocted in Washington, D.C., to benefit his special interest allies, and not listening to the stakeholders who have been working on this for years. The great number of Utahns who expect protections for the economic values of outdoor recreation in the Bears Ears region now have few tools left at their disposal. Someone besides Congress will have to take steps to get this done because Congressman Bishop can’t hand his homework in on time.”

The tribal coalition singled out the following points in criticizing the legislation:

* The PLI divides the proposed Bears Ears Conservation Area in half and leaves large areas with important cultural and archeological resources unprotected. Boundaries that were proposed by the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition for a Bears Ears National Conservation Area or National Monument were developed through detailed conversations with Elders, this bill does follow not their boundary recommendations.

* The Bears Ears National Conservation Area in the bill provides fewer protections than other National Conservation Areas passed by Congress and contains loopholes that would make it impossible for land managers to adequately protect cultural and natural resources. The bill requires all historic uses of the area be continued – even those that have damaged cultural areas. With this provision included in the bill, the NCA would not provide any meaningful protection for Bears Ears. This bill is far below the coalition proposal in terms of environmental protection.

* Damage from ATVs to cultural resources would be exacerbated under this bill.

* Tribes are not given an adequate say in the management of the proposed Bears Ears NCA. The PLI falls far short of true collaborative management.

"A Bears Ears National Monument proclaimed by President Obama under his authority granted by the Antiquities Act presents the best opportunity to protect the Bears Ears landscape and a strong Native American voice in monument management," the coalition said in a release. "We continue to believe that our monument proposal will establish one of the greatest of all national monuments and parks. The natural landscape – red rock, and gentle forest – is striking. The ancient civilizations of our Native people are evident everywhere. This monument will be one of the most distinctive and revered of all federal land units. The Coalition’s collaborative management proposal will assure that our Native voice, our vibrant cultures, and our traditional knowledge will be heard and seen at Bears Ears forever."

A coalition of groups -- the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Grand Canyon Trust, The Wilderness Society, the Natural Resources Defense Fund, the National Parks Conservation Association, and the Conservation Lands Foundation -- said the revised PLI legislation was "merely a dressed up version of the same bad bill."

“The intent of Rep. Bishop’s bill is simple: abandon our public lands to indiscriminate abuse by the oil and gas industry,” said Sharon Buccino, director of the land and wildlife program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It would open up this iconic Utah landscape to coal mining, tar sands, oil shale, and oil and gas development. That would put local communities and our climate at increased risk. And it would undermine the clean energy future we are already moving to.”

At NPCA, Southwest Region Director David Nimkin said the congressmen were missing an opportunity to protect world-class landscapes in Canyonlands and Arches national parks, as well as Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, and the Natural Bridges and Hovenweep national monuments.

“Across the nation, including in southeast Utah, many of our most ecologically intact landscapes are anchored by national parks. Yet, national parks are only as protected as the landscapes of which they are a part. This legislation would make Utah’s national parks, at best, abandoned islands," he said. "It rolls back protections to the surrounding landscapes and undermines federal land management authority and expertise on park ecosystems. We are disappointed in the bill and its partner act, that flies in the face of one of our nation’s most bipartisan conservation tools, the Antiquities Act.” 

Convention Platforms

With the Republican Party and Democratic Party conventions on tap, environmental and conservation groups are reaching out to party leaders, urging them to protect, not pick apart, the environment. Issues of concern include aspects of the GOP's draft platform that calls for turning federal lands over to states, and efforts to hamstring the President's use of the Antiquities Act to set aside national monuments.

"Your 2016 party platform presents an opportunity to explain to the American people how you will satisfy competing interests and protect our public lands for future generations. Healthy debate about how to manage federal lands is an important part of the democratic process. Your platform can advance that democratic debate by explaining how your party proposes to sustainably develop natural resources, protect wildlife habitat, ensure public access, and maintain our public land heritage for future generations," reads a letter to Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus from nearly three dozen conservation groups from across the nation.

"At the same time, we do not believe it would be constructive to include broad directives to transfer federal lands to state or local control, sell federal lands to private interests, or otherwise liquidate the national interest in federal land management. These kinds of directives do a disservice to the American people and especially to America’s hunters and anglers. These proposals do not advance the goal of finding meaningful ways to balance competing interests and preserve our national public land heritage for future generations."

The same letter was sent to Shirley Franklin, co-chair of the Democratic National Convention Platform Committee.

Meanwhile, a state representative from Maine was able to get the GOP platform committee to insert a plank that would require not only Congress but also states to approve any monument designation made by a U.S. president.