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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

Trump’s plan to overhaul government would give Interior and EPA more power

June 22, 2018 — The White House on Thursday unveiled a radical overhaul of the federal bureaucracy, including many of the agencies managing energy and natural resources.

The Trump administration’s ideas for revamping which agencies are tasked with certain energy and environmental responsibilities — such as managing the nation’s fisheries and flood infrastructure — are part of a broader reorganization plan that calls for sweeping changes such as merging the Labor and Education departments.

But the reorganization effort calls for a level of consolidation that Congress, which would need to approve the plan, is unlikely to sign off on.

It has long been the goal of many conservatives to streamline federal work on energy and environmental issues. Many Republican candidates for president have even promised to eliminate entire departments, such as when Rick Perry suggested during the 2012 race to shutter the Energy Department, which he now runs, and when Donald Trump in 2016 once called for closing the Environmental Protection Agency.

But President Trump’s latest plan is much smaller in scale than any of those campaign-trail promises.

In fact, instead of asking for the eradication of the EPA, the president’s proposal calls upon the agency to take on even more work. Under the plan, the EPA’s Superfund program would absorb portions of hazardous site cleanup programs run by the Interior and Agriculture departments. However, at the same time the EPA would also reduce or otherwise “recalibrate” its oversight of state-run pollution-control programs.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

Panel Outlines Devastating Social and Economic Consequences of Antiquities Designations

May 2, 2017 — The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources:

Today, the Subcommittee on Federal Lands heard testimony on the consequences of Executive Branch overreach of the Antiquities Act. The panel discussed national monuments designated without significant local input or support or that included excessively large or restricted areas of land.

Director of the Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office and former head of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management Kathleen Clarke discussed the devastating economic consequences for Utah communities after President Clinton designated 1.7 million acres in Utah as the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in 1996.

“Families that have lived for generations in affected communities find their families torn apart due to lack of employment opportunities for the next generation. Populations are declining. In the twenty years since the creation of the Grand Staircase, school enrollment in Escalante has gone from 150 to 57 students,” Clarke said.

The monument included roughly 176,000 acres of Utah School and Institutional Trust Land Administration (SITLA) lands, which generate revenues for the state’s K-12 public education system. According to the Utah Geological Survey, the value of resources on school trust lands dropped by $8 billion immediately after the monument designation.

President Obama’s December 2016 Bears Ears National Monument designation similarly locked up 109,000 acres of SITLA land in southern Utah. “What impact will this have for SITLA as they try to grow their fund to benefit more schoolchildren in the state,” Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) asked Clarke.

This will “diminish opportunity,” Clarke responded, adding that it threatens Utah’s entire K-12 public education system.

Knox Marshall, Vice President of the Resources Division at Murphy Company, testified that President Obama’s January 2017 expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in southwestern Oregon and California has “devastated the social fabric of our rural communities and crippled county finances.”

“Douglas County in Oregon, for example, has recently closed its entire public library system because timber sale revenues that previously funded those libraries and a robust set of other public services have largely disappeared,” Marshall added.

Maine Governor Paul LePage outlined current and anticipated adverse impacts resulting from the August 2016 Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument designation by President Obama, including economic losses to the forestry industry and public access barriers such as the loss of connectivity for ATV trails in the region.

“Not long after President Obama designated the Monument, Maine residents started to feel the negative effects of having the federal government as their new master,” LePage stated.

“These designations were often imposed in spite of local opposition, without consultation with Congress, or the state or local government’s effected, and without regard for the economic damage these designations have had on surrounding communities,” Subcommittee Chairman Tom McClintock (R-CA) said.

After reading letters and resolutions from local tribes in Utah opposing the Bears Ears designation Chairman Bishop stated, “I hope that those listening today will remember these voices, the ones that have been excluded from this conversation and the ones that President Obama ignored when he designated Bears Ears National Monument.”

Click here to view full witness testimony.