Rob Bishop Archives - Page 6 of 8

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

Chairman Bishop Statement on Secretary Zinke’s National Monument Review

August 24, 2017 — WASHINGTON — The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources:

Today, Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) issued the following statement in reaction to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s final review of national monument designations under the Antiquities Act (Act):

“I am encouraged by the recommendations to revise previous designations that were inconsistent with the law and outside the Act’s size limitations. It is my hope that President Trump takes this opportunity to begin realigning uses of the law with its intended purpose. It’s also incumbent on Congress to pursue reforms to the Act that ensure it is being used to protect antiquities while providing meaningful local input in the designation process and reasonable continued public access to these iconic areas. Ultimately, only Congress can restore integrity to this law and prevent future abuses.”

Additionally, Chairman Bishop hosted a press call this morning to discuss the Trump Administration’s review of national monuments and reforms to the Antiquities Act:

Listen to Chairman Bishop’s statement here

Listen to a Q&A with Chairman Bishop here

Committee Calls for Improved Science, Local Flexibility and Regulatory Certainty in Magnuson-Stevens

July 19, 2017 — The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources:

Today, the Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans held a hearing examining the successes and needed updates to the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA). Passed in 1976, MSA is the primary law governing fisheries in federal waters.

The law requires federal fishery managers to impose an annual catch limit on both commercial and recreational fisheries. Critics of this system argue that it represents deficient science, disproportionately hurts the recreational industry and is unnecessarily inflexible.

“Management of the recreational sector under strict annual catch limits generates devastating socioeconomic effects and is highly unreasonable due to the insufficiency of the recreational data collection system.” Director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Service Nick Wiley stated. “[It] is truly a square peg in a round hole causing high levels of frustration.”

“Sometimes the ‘best science available’ is no science at all, and that’s what hurts us,” Congressman Don Yong (R-AK) said.

“Many of the issues faced by our commercial and recreational anglers could be alleviated if sound science was actually being applied,” Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) added. “I have faith that the new administration will do just that.”

MSA also requires that overfished species be rebuilt within ten years. The industry has generally condemned this provision as arbitrary and harmful to both fisheries and the many communities that rely on them.

“The result has been that a founding principle of the Act has been eroded to the extent where we have lost our collective ability to ‘achieve optimum yield on a continuing basis’ in our region,” Lund’s Fisheries, Inc. Jeff Kaelin stated.

Uncertainty has plagued many fisheries due to duplicative and ill-suited regulations from a host of environmental statutes and, more recently, capricious and disruptive marine monument designations acted upon through executive fiat.

“In our view marine monument designations were politically motivated and addressed non-existing problems,” President of the Hawaii Longline Association Sean Martin said. “Fisheries operating in these areas were sustainably managed for several decades under the MSA and the Western Pacific Council. There was no serious attempt to work with the fishing industry in the designations of these monuments.”

“I may not live in a coastal community, however – like many of my colleagues – I have constituents that want fresh, sustainable, U.S. caught seafood on their dinner plates,” Subcommittee Chairman Doug Lamborn (R-CO) said. “[W]e can maintain sustainability while also increasing access to our waters for all. We can strike a balance and it is incumbent on us to do so.”

Click here to view full witness testimony.

Read the full release here

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.

Marine Monument Designations Sideline Communities and the Domestic Fishing Industry

March 15, 2017 — The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources:

Today, the Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans held an oversight hearing on the creation and management of marine monuments and sanctuaries. The panel overwhelmingly objected to the lack of local input, transparency and scientific scrutiny in the marine monument designation process.

“Federal decision-making directly impacts local citizens, local economies and the environment. It is important to review how these decisions are being implemented, and, where needed, correct or improve the laws guiding these decisions,” Subcommittee Vice Chairman Daniel Webster (R-FL) said.

Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) discussed his visit to New Bedford, MA, the nation’s top-grossing commercial fishing port, with Democrat Mayor Jon Mitchell, who was unable to attend due to weather.

“[D]uring my visit to New Bedford, we met with dozens of local fishermen and industry to talk about the Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization as well as the state of federal fisheries management. It didn’t take long for the conversation to quickly turn to the then-proposed Marine National Monument off of the coast of Massachusetts. However, the fishermen weren’t just blindly opposing the Monument, they actually came to the table with a pragmatic solution,” Bishop stated.

Unfortunately with the stroke of his pen, President Obama ignored a viable alternative developed with stakeholders and unnecessarily cordoned off vital acreage for fishing communities off the coast of Cape Cod.

In his written testimony, Mayor Mitchell pointed out inherently flawed issues in the monument designation process: “It lacks sufficient amounts of all the ingredients that good policy-making requires: scientific rigor, direct industry input, transparency, and a deliberate pace that allows adequate time and space for review,” Mitchell wrote.

“A decision-making process driven by the simple assertion of executive branch authority ultimately leaves ocean management decisions permanently vulnerable to short-term political considerations,” Mitchell added. “Such an outcome is cause for deep concern no matter one’s position in the current policy debates.”

Brian Hallman, Executive Director of the American Tunaboat Association, outlined the troubling conflicts monuments and sanctuaries have with established procedures including the federal Magnuson-Stevens Act and international treaties and conventions.

“The fundamental purpose of marine monuments, as I understand it, is to preclude, or at least severely limit, human activity in the designated area […] but limiting fishing via marine monuments makes no sense whatsoever. […] The establishment of marine monuments completely pre-empts and usurps these longstanding, legally binding and effective processes,” Hallman stated.

Click here to read full witness testimony.

Last week Chairman Bishop and Rep. Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-American Samoa) sent a letter to President Trump requesting the removal of all marine monument fishing prohibitions. Click here to read the letter.

Calls grow louder for Trump to reverse marine monument designations

March 13, 2017 — Elected representatives in Congress and industry groups are appealing to the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to investigate the potential of removing marine monument designations made by Trump’s predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) and Rep. Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-American Samoa) sent a letter to Trump earlier this week requesting the removal of fishing restrictions and the reinstatement of fisheries management under federal law, according to a letter released by the committee.

“Using the Antiquities Act to close U.S. waters to domestic fisheries is a clear example of federal overreach and regulatory duplication and obstructs well-managed, sustainable U.S. fishing industries in favor of their foreign counterparts,” the letter said. “You alone can act quickly to reverse this travesty, improve our national security, and support the U.S. fishing industry that contributes to the U.S. economy while providing healthy, well-managed fish for America’s tables.”

The letter attributes the closure of the Tri Marine’s Samoa Tuna Processors canning factory in American Samoa in December 2016 to the U.S. purse-seining tuna fleet’s loss of access to fishing areas in the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument designated in 2009 by President George W. Bush. It also criticizes the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument – created by Bush and expanded by Obama – for removing fishing territory from the Hawaii longline fleet.

“[The monument designations] exemplify how a president and government bureaucracies can dispassionately decimate U.S. fishing industries,” the letter said.

In their letter, Bishop and Radewagen urge Trump to “act swiftly and effectively to remove all marine monument fishing prohibitions,” but do not clarify what specific actions they are asking Trump to take to undo the marine monument designations made under the powers of the Antiquities Act.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

American Samoa Congresswomen Asks President Trump To Remove Fishing Prohibitions

March 9, 2017 — U.S President Donald Trump has been asked to remove all marine monument fishing prohibitions and reinstate fisheries management in accordance with federal law.

The request, made yesterday in a two-page letter by US Rep. Rob Bishop, chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources and American Samoa’s Congresswoman Aumua Amata, says prohibitions on commercial fishing in waters around marine monuments have impacted US fishing fleet as well as one cannery operation in Pago Pago.

“Using the Antiquities Act to close U.S waters to domestic fisheries is a clear example of federal overreach and regulatory duplication and obstructs well managed, sustainable U.S. fishing industries in favor of their foreign counterparts,” the letter from the Republican lawmakers point out.

Read the full story at the Pacific Islands Report

Chairman Bishop, Rep. Radewagen Call on President Trump to Reverse Unilateral Fishing Restrictions

WASHINGTON — March 7, 2017 — The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources:

Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) and Rep. Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-American Samoa) sent a letter to President Trump today requesting removal of all marine monument fishing prohibitions and reinstatement of fisheries management under federal law.

“Access to several of the nation’s key fisheries is in jeopardy – through the establishment and expansion of marine national monuments. […] The commercial fishing prohibitions of marine national monuments impact shore-side businesses and local economies of the U.S.,” the letter states.

“Using the Antiquities Act to close U.S. waters to domestic fisheries is a clear example of federal overreach and regulatory duplication and obstructs well managed, sustainable U.S. fishing industries in favor of their foreign counterparts. You alone can act quickly to reverse this travesty, improve our national security, and support the U.S. fishing industry that contributes to the U.S. economy while providing healthy, well-managed fish for America’s tables.”

Click here to read the full letter.

Senate holds hearing to modernize the Endangered Species Act

February 16, 2017 — A Senate hearing to “modernize the Endangered Species Act” unfolded Wednesday just as supporters of the law had feared, with round after round of criticism from Republican lawmakers who said the federal effort to keep species from going extinct encroaches on states’ rights, is unfair to landowners and stymies efforts by mining companies to extract resources and create jobs.

The two-hour meeting of the Environment and Public Works Committee was led by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who said last month that his focus in a bid to change the act would be “eliminating a lot of the red tape and the bureaucratic burdens that have been impacting our ability to create jobs,” according to a report in Energy and Environment News.

In his opening remarks, Barrasso declared that the act “is not working today,” adding that “states, counties, wildlife managers, home builders, construction companies, farmers, ranchers and other stakeholders” have made that clear in complaints about how it impedes land management plans, housing development and cattle grazing, particularly in western states, such as Wyoming.

At least one Republican has vowed to wage an effort to repeal the Endangered Species Act. “It has never been used for the rehabilitation of species,” House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said, according to an Associated Press report. “It’s been used to control the land. We’ve missed the entire purpose of the Endangered Species Act. It has been hijacked.”

But members of the hearing said its regulations prevented people from doing business and making a living. In a comment to a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director who testified at the hearing, Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), repeated a point made by Barrasso that of more than 1,600 species listed as threatened or endangered since the act’s inception, fewer than 50 have been removed.

Read the full story at The Washington Post