Reducing Antiquities Act Land Grabs
Acting on recommendations by Department of the Interior Secretary
Ryan Zinke, on December 4 President Trump significantly reduced the
size of two enormous areas in Utah that Presidents Clinton and Obama
had set aside as limited-access, no-development zones under the 1906
Antiquities Act.
Mr. Trump’s action reduced the Grand Staircase
Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments from a combined 3.2 million
acres (the size of Connecticut) to 1.2 million acres (slightly smaller
than Delaware).
Utah residents and elected officials applauded the move as long overdue. The Patagonia and North Faceoutdoor apparel companies, environmentalist groups, and various liberal
politicians and news outlets branded the action a desecration, claimed
President Trump "stole†the lands from the American people, and
launched coordinated and hyperventilated disinformation campaigns.
In
reality, the actual thefts were masterminded and conducted by previous
White House officials, in cahoots with radical environmentalists.
Employing the immense power of the federal government, they took
valuable state lands, multiple private lands and property rights, and a
private company’s most valuable asset (America’s largest clean coal
deposit) without any compensation whatsoever.
The Antiquities Act was intended to protect areas of historic,
prehistoric or scientific value, and lands designated as monuments were
to be "the smallest size compatible with the proper care and
management†of objects or sites to be protected. Its goal is to
safeguard fossils, unique plants and habitats, Native artifacts and
sites, geologic structures and special scenic areas from damage,
desecration and looting.
The first national monument ever
designated (the 1,347-acre Devils Tower) respected the law’s language
and intent, as have most designations since then. However, in recent
decades presidents have increasingly used the act to circumvent
Congress and replace proper legislative processes with executive
decrees. They established enormous de facto wilderness areas with the
stroke of a pen – usually with little or no consultation with people
and elected officials in communities that would be most severely
impacted.
It is these abuses that Messrs. Zinke and Trump sought
to correct. In so doing, they followed decisions by Presidents
Coolidge, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Taft and Wilson, who also reduced the
size of previous monument designations. The Utah changes address
arguably the greatest onshore Antiquities Act abuses.
President
Clinton designated the 1,880,461-acre Grand Staircase Escalante
Monument in large part to make a billion-dollar coal deposit off
limits, by preventing any roads from reaching it. The action was
quietly engineered by Katie McGinty, his White House Environmental
Policy Office director, in collaboration with the Southern Utah
Wilderness Alliance. Even Mr. Clinton was not fully aware of what he
was signing, and Ms. McGinty totally blindsided Utah Governor Michael
Levitt, who (like every other citizen and official in Utah) knew
nothing about the massive land lockup until it was a done deal.
(For all the sordid details, read chapter 12 in Cracking Big Greenor chapter 4 in Undue Influence.)
President
Obama designated the 1,351,849-acre Bears Ears NM three weeks before
leaving office, largely to make still more energy, mineral and other
resources off limits to exploration and development. He too did so
without prior consultation with Utah’s governor, congressional
delegation or residents. Offshore marine national monuments now total
760 million acres – 7-1/2 times the size of California!
Monument designation means exploration, drilling, mining,
timber harvesting, motorized vehicles, and even grazing and gathering
firewood are prohibited. People’s property rights, lives, livelihoods,
living standards and life savings are grievously affected. The entire
tax, job and revenue base of communities, counties and states is
impacted. Thousands of acres of state "school sections†– which states
are granted at the time of statehood to finance schools – are made off
limits, with no compensation.
That’s real thievery. At the very
least, this demands careful consultation with the people who live
there, and negotiations with their representatives to ensure that all
these interests are considered and addressed. Stroke-of-the-pen
monument decrees callously circumvented all these constitutional, legal
and ethical safeguards. They ensured that valuable property was taken
without due process or just compensation.
Taken together, the
original Grand Staircase and Bears Ears Monuments were far larger than
the combined acreage of Utah’s Bryce and Zion National Parks. They are in addition toUtah’s three other national parks, six other national monuments, four
national recreation and conservation areas, hundreds of miles of
national trails, 31 national wilderness areas, and millions of acres in
other restrictive land use categories – in a state where the federal
government still owns 61% of all the land.
Compare that to states east of the Mississippi, where
federal agencies own,
manage or control just 0.3% of Connecticut and Iowa, and 0.6% of New
York, for example. People and officials in these states have no inkling
of what it is like to live in Western states where 30% to 80% of all
lands are federally owned.
Even more important, the remaining Utah monument areas are still huge.
From Bears Ears, the new Shash Jáa monument is 130,000 acres (three
times the size of Washington, DC) and Indian Creek is 72,000 acres
(almost twice DC). From Grand Staircase Escalante, the new Grand
Staircase is 210,000 acres (one-third of Rhode Island); Kaiparowits is
551,000 acres (81% of RI); and Escalante Canyons is 243,000 acres (36%
of RI). To suggest that these monuments are now too small to safeguard
their unique habitats, scenic areas, fossil sites, antiquities and
Pueblo ruins is simply absurd – and disingenuous.
Imagine the
Fish & Wildlife Service or other federal agency "protectingâ€
one-half of Rhode Island or Delaware as a monument or endangered
species habitat, to safeguard a Native American village site, small
meteorite crater, scenic river valley, or rare fish, frog or bird
habitat – on the bogus ground that making a smaller area off limits to
human activity would leave it open to depredation.
That’s what
Utah was dealing with – along with claims that a single mine, oil well,
road, ranch, town or other sign of humanity’s presence … in areas the
size of Rhode Island, Delaware or even Connecticut … would forever
destroy the "wilderness character†of the entire area. This is what
drives environmentalist activism and decades of pre-Trump federal land
management policy. It’s deplorable and intolerable.
In reality,
all areas removed from highly restrictive "national monument†status
remain under the management and protection of multiple federal agencies
and regulations. They are not being "stolen,†given to Utah or private interests, opened to rapacious looting and development, or left defenseless.
In
stark contrast to the way Presidents Clinton and Obama designated the
two original monuments, these decisions to reduce their size were made
only after numerous extensive meetings and consultations, over a
six-month period, with local residents and leaders, tribal and
inter-tribal members and delegates, local, county and congressional
representatives, environmental groups and many other parties.
If
any of these or other people and organizations want official wilderness
or park status for any of these areas that have been returned to
traditional "multiple use†management and protection – they can and
should utilize the legislative processes required by the Constitution,
Wilderness Act and other laws. Any other approach would be improper,
unconstitutional, illegal, unethical and dismissive of local interests.
On
a related front, federal arrogance and heavy-handedness took the Obama
era war on coal to the Navajo Nation. Citing specious climate change,
health and "viewshed†justifications, regulators issued what were
effectively execution orders for the coal-fired Navajo Generating
Station and its associated coal mine –destroying two pillars of the
precarious Navajo economy and living standards. In league with radical
greens, they also scuttled plans to build the proposed state-of-the-art
Desert Rock coal-fired power plant.
As in the case of huge Utah
national monument designations, Navajo families and tribal leaders were
deliberately and systematically excluded from the decision-making and
property confiscation process.
This is the regulatory culture
and mindset that President Trump and Secretary Zinke are trying to
change. For doing so, they are meeting fierce resistance and
disinformation from Patagonia, North Face and their allies. Shoppers
might want to keep this in mind when thinking about what to buy for
holiday gifts.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:09 AM
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