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Top Natural Resources Republican asks Haaland for details on national monuments

March 29, 2021 — Rep. Bruce Westerman (Ark.), the top Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee, requested further information Monday from Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on the department’s review of the boundaries and protections of national monuments.

The Trump administration reduced the boundaries of two Utah sites, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante.

Biden in January ordered a review of the boundaries with a report of its findings issued within 60 days. However, the department has since announced it will publish the report after Haaland completes a visit to the monuments in April, after the 60-day window.

“While the planned visit to Utah, as well as reports of DOI [Department of the Interior] aides meeting with stakeholders, are encouraging steps, many matters remain unclear. For example, there is uncertainty whether DOI plans to initiate a formal, public comment period and how local support for the Trump administration’s decision will factor into future analysis,” Westerman wrote.

Read the full story at The Hill

President Biden to review Trump’s changes to national monuments

January 20, 2021 — Trump’s decision to downsize the Bears Ears National Monument by 85% on lands considered sacred to Native Americans in southeastern Utah and to shrink Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by nearly half earned him applause from Utah’s Republican leaders, who considered the monuments an example of federal government overreach.

Environmental, tribal, paleontological and outdoor recreation organizations have pending lawsuits to restore the full sizes of the monuments, arguing presidents don’t have the legal authority to undo or change monuments created by predecessors.

Pat Gonzales-Rogers, executive director of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, said the group has told the Biden transition team the monument should first restored to the size Obama created and later to a larger size tribes originally requested.

The lands are sacred to tribes in the coalition: Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni, and Ute Indian Tribe, he said. The area includes thousands of archaeological sites on red rock lands including cliff dwellings. The Bears Ears buttes that overlook a grassy valley are particularly sacred.

“The Bears Ears is a church and the place of worship for many of our tribes,” Gonzales-Rogers said. “It should be viewed with the same type of gravitas and platform that you would view the Cathedral of Notre Dame.”

The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts conservation area comprises about 5,000 square miles east of New England. It contains vulnerable species of marine life such as right whales and fragile deep sea corals. The monument was the first national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean.

Read the full White House release here

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Chicago Tribune

Trump administration loses bid to dismiss monument lawsuits

October 2, 2019 — A federal judge has rejected the Trump administration’s bid to dismiss lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of a 2017 decision to downsize two sprawling national monuments in Utah.

U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan’s written decisions issued Monday night means the legal challenges seeking to return the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments to their original sizes can move forward.

Chutkan didn’t decide the key question at the core of the lawsuits: Does the Antiquities Act give presidents the power to create monuments as well as reduce them?

The government has already created new management plans for the downsized monuments. President Donald Trump downsized Bears Ears by 85% and Grand Staircase by nearly half.

The lawsuits were filed by environmental organizations, tribal coalitions, an outdoor recreation company and a paleontology organization.

Those groups celebrated getting over an initial hurdle as they attempt to reverse decisions they say left sensitive lands and sites vulnerable to damage. Lands cut from the monuments are still under protections afforded to federal lands but are now open to oil and gas drilling and coal mining.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Why Trump is defending a marine monument made by Obama

April 23, 2018 — The Trump administration is defending an underwater national monument off the coast of New England designated by former President Barack Obama in 2016, but not because it likes what Obama created.

After all, President Trump last year issued a rollback of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, and his administration has argued that Obama and other recent presidents abused their authority in creating or expanding national monuments on large swaths of public land.

Trump wants fewer and smaller monuments, and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has recommended the president shrink the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument that the administration is now backing in court.

So, what gives?

It’s all about presidential power.

“If anything, I would not be surprised if we see President Trump issue an executive order down the line eliminating or diminishing this very same marine monument,” said Justin Pidot, a law professor at the University of Denver who served as the deputy solicitor for land resources at the Interior Department during the Obama administration.

Read the full story at the Washington Examiner

 

Zinke urges commercial fishing in 3 protected areas

December 7, 2017 — Much of the attention to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s review of national monuments has focused on sites across the West, but recommendations he made to President Trump show that a trio of marine monuments could also see significant changes.

In a report Interior released yesterday, Zinke advised that commercial fishing be introduced to three ocean sites: Rose Atoll, Pacific Remote Islands, and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts marine national monuments.

Advocates for fishermen cheered the recommendations, asserting the restrictions had created an “economic burden” for their industry.

“The marine monument designation process may have been well intended, but it has simply lacked a comparable level of industry input, scientific rigor, and deliberation,” said New Bedford, Mass., Mayor Jon Mitchell in a statement released by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities.

He added: “That is why I think hitting the reset button ought to be welcomed no matter where one stands in the current fisheries debates, because the end result will be better policy and better outcomes.”

In the report, Zinke criticized restrictions on commercial fishing in the three monuments, discounting the industry’s impact on areas such as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts near the Massachusetts coast.

Read the full story at E&E News

 

Zinke backs shrinking more national monuments and shifting management of 10

December 7, 2017 — Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Tuesday called on President Trump to shrink a total of four national monuments and change the way six other land and marine sites are managed, a sweeping overhaul of how protected areas are maintained in the United States.

Zinke’s final report comes a day after Trump signed proclamations in Utah that downsized two massive national monuments there — Bears Ears by 85 percent and Grand Staircase-Escalante by nearly 46 percent. The president had directed Zinke in April to review 27 national monuments established since 1996 under the Antiquities Act, which gives the president broad authority to safeguard federal lands and waters under threat.

In addition to the Utah sites, Zinke supports cutting Nevada’s Gold Butte and Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou, though the exact reductions are still being determined. He also would revise the proclamations for those and the others to clarify that certain activities are allowed.

The additional monuments affected include Northeast Canyons and Seamounts in the Atlantic Ocean; both Rose Atoll and the Pacific Remote Islands in the Pacific Ocean; New Mexico’s Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks and Rio Grande Del Norte, and Maine’s Katahdin Woods and Waters.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

 

Wall Street Journal: The Right Move on Monuments

December 5, 2017 — President Trump announced Monday that he will dramatically reduce the acreage of two national monuments. The order ends excessive federal control of Utah land, allowing residents to protect their own territory and conserve their cultural relics.

Congress passed the Antiquities Act in 1906 to give Presidents emergency authority to prevent the looting and destruction of national treasures. The law said designated monuments should be limited to “the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects,” but Bill Clinton and Barack Obama misapplied this power to carry out a Washington land grab.

Without public comment, the federal government unilaterally seized control of more than 3.2 million acres of southeastern Utah that together constitute the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments. Residents and their elected representatives had minimal influence on the draconian land-use restrictions imposed by Washington bureaucrats. In September, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke described how the Antiquities Act had been abused “to prevent public access and to prevent public use” of land, harming everyone from cattlemen to cross-country skiers.

Read the full editorial at the Wall Street Journal

Trump shrinks two huge national monuments in Utah, drawing praise and protests

December 4, 2017 — SALT LAKE CITY — President Trump on Monday drastically scaled back two national monuments established in Utah by his Democratic predecessors, the largest reduction of public lands protection in U.S. history.

Trump’s move to shrink the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by more than 1.1 million acres and more than 800,000 acres, respectively, immediately sparked an outpouring of praise from conservative lawmakers as well as activists’ protests outside the White House and in Utah. It also plunges the Trump administration into uncharted legal territory since no president has sought to modify monuments established under the 1906 Antiquities Act in more than half a century.

His decision removes about 85 percent of the designation of Bears Ears and nearly 46 percent of that for Grand Staircase-Escalante, land that potentially could now be leased for energy exploration or opened for specific activities such as motorized vehicle use.

Trump told a rally in Salt Lake City that he came to “reverse federal overreach” and took dramatic action “because some people think that the natural resources of Utah should be controlled by a small handful of very distant bureaucrats located in Washington. And guess what? They’re wrong.”

“They don’t know your land, and truly, they don’t care for your land like you do,” he added. “But from now on, that won’t matter.”

Conservatives have long sought to curb a president’s unilateral power to safeguard federal lands and waters under the law, a practice that both Democrats and Republicans have pursued since it was enacted under Theodore Roosevelt. The issue has been a particular flash point in the West, where some local residents feel the federal government already imposes too many restrictions on development and others, including tribal officials, feel greater protections of ancient sites are needed.

Even before Trump made the announcement as part of a day trip to the state, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Craig Uden was hailing the resized designations. While grazing has continued on both monuments, as well as on others, Uden said ranchers could not have greater input into how they are managed.

“We are grateful that today’s action will allow ranchers to resume their role as responsible stewards of the land and drivers of rural economies,” he said.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

Eagle-Tribune: Outdated Antiquities Act needs revisions

August 28, 2017 — The announcement last week that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had wrapped up his review of 27 recently established national monuments did little to lessen the controversy surrounding their status. Zinke’s unwillingness to be transparent about his review and its results all but guarantees a legal quagmire.

While most of the attention has been focused on Utah and the newly created Bears Ears National Monument, there are also high stakes in New England, where fishermen, boaters and environmentalists are waiting to see how the Trump administration views the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine Monument.

All sides are already threatening lawsuits, so no matter the outcome, the issue will likely not be settled for years.

“The fate of these treasures shouldn’t be left hanging in the balance,” Peter Shelley, senior counsel for the Conservation Law Foundation, said in a statement last week. “Some 3 million people — more than 98 percent of the commenters — voiced their support for keeping our national monuments intact. Submitting recommendations that defy the will of the American people and then withholding these recommendations from the public is utterly unacceptable. The president has no legal authority to alter national monuments, and we will take him to court if he tries.”

If anything, the debate over Canyons and Seamounts shows the need for Congress to update the outdated Antiquities Act, which allows presidential administrations to designate and reshape national monuments with little or no oversight.

Read the full editorial at the Eagle-Tribune

Monuments Review Spurs Call to Overhaul Antiquities Act

Interior Department does not recommend overturning any designations

August 28, 2017 — The Interior Department’s conclusion of a contentious review of national monuments might give Congress some impetus to revisit the Antiquities Act of 1906, which presidents of both parties have used to designate monuments through executive action.

House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop on Thursday called for Congress to overhaul the Antiquities Act to place “reasonable limits” on the way presidents use the statute. Bishop’s statements came shortly before the Interior Department submitted recommendations to the White House after an executive-ordered review of monument designations made over the last two decades.

Bishop, a Utah Republican and forceful critic of federal control of public lands in the West, said in a call with reporters that the Obama administration had abused the statute that allows presidents to designate national monuments without congressional action. The Interior review, he said, was necessary because some of the designations were a result of abuse of the statute and did not allow for adequate input by local communities.

“If we don’t reform the Antiquities Act, we will have a replication of failures,” Bishop said. “If the procedure is flawed, the product is going to be flawed.”

Former President Barack Obama’s most contentious designation, the creation of the 1.3 million-acre Bears Ears monument, drew much opposition from Bishop and other Utah lawmakers, who lobbied the Trump administration for its reversal. Another of the more contentious ones is Maine’s Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, which marked its first anniversary Thursday.

Read the full story at Roll Call