Saving Seafood

Rep. Rob Bishop: Restore the Antiquities Act’s noble vision

October 11, 2017 — In a Tuesday op-ed, I explained the constitutional threat posed by the Antiquities Act, and why its repeated abuse is inconsistent with the constitutional pillars of the rule of law and checks and balances. As it turns out, there’s a reason the Founders chose these principles as the basis of our government: arbitrary rule has no incentive to be accountable to the people that policies affect. Without that accountability, political and ideological manipulation corrodes the balance of power.

Some of the most egregious abuses – the use of the Antiquities Act as a political weapon – happened under President Bill Clinton’s administration.

In 1996, prior to the designation of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in Utah, Clinton’s then-Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality Katie McGinty stated the following, “I’m increasingly of the view that we should just drop these utah [sic] ideas. we [sic] do not really know how the enviros will react and I do think there is a danger of ‘abuse’ of the withdraw/antiquities authorities especially because these lands are not really endangered.”

Could there be any clearer statement of the prioritization of political ideology over the will of people?

The monument was designated in the waning months of Clinton’s re-election campaign. Its total acreage: 1.7 million — three times the size of Rhode Island. No town halls, no public meetings, and no public comment sessions were ever held in Utah. No input was solicited from local stakeholders or land managers in the area. Utah’s governor, congressional delegation, public officials, and residents from across the state all expressed outrage at the lack of prior consultation or warning of the designation. In what feels like symbolism, the proclamation wasn’t even signed in Utah; it was signed in Arizona.

Read the full op-ed at the Washington Examiner

NCFC Member Grant Moore Joins Sen. Lee, Chairman Bishop on Antiquities Act Panel in Washington

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) – October 4, 2017 – Grant Moore, president of NCFC member the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association, joined Utah Senator Mike Lee and House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop in a Heritage Foundation panel today on Capitol Hill to discuss national monuments and the Antiquities Act.

At the panel, “National Monuments and the Communities They Impact: Views Beyond the Beltway,” Mr. Moore criticized last year’s designation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument by President Barack Obama, which he said lacked sufficient industry input and public deliberation. The monument designation affects fisheries worth more than $100 million, he said.

“We’re not opposed to monuments,” Mr. Moore said. “We’re opposed to the process in which it was done. It was not transparent. It was not open. If we hadn’t stumbled upon what was happening, we would have had a signature and we wouldn’t have had a say at all.”

Mr. Moore complimented Chairman Bishop for meeting with fishermen and listening to their story in a visit to New Bedford, Mass., last year arranged by Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities. He also praised another meeting organized by the NCFC earlier this year in which Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke met with fishermen in Boston as part of his review of national monuments.

Secretary Zinke has reportedly recommended to President Donald Trump that commercial fishing be allowed in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Monument. The Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association, based in Newport, R.I., was one of eleven NCFC member organizations that publicly voiced its support for the Secretary’s reported recommendations. At today’s panel, Mr. Moore praised these recommendations, but called them a “Band Aid” that would not prevent the Antiquities Act from being misused to create large national monuments in the future.

“We need to reform the Antiquities Act so it’s not abused,” Mr. Moore said. “Nobody should have the power with the stroke of a pen to put people out of business. Nobody. It has to go through a public process.”

In his remarks, Senator Lee also called for changes to the Antiquities Act. “What’s needed is a wholesale reform of the Antiquities Act to return its monumental power back to where it belongs – to the people who reside closest to the proposed monuments,” he said. “Local residents must have ultimate say over whether their communities can be upended in this way.”

Chairman Bishop discussed the original intent of the Antiquities Act to save endangered antiquities while leaving the smallest footprint possible. But with national monuments now frequently encompassing hundreds of millions of acres, he argued that they are no longer leaving the smallest footprint possible.

“What started as something noble and grand turned into something far different, far less, and it is time now to reform it and make it useful again,” Chairman Bishop said. “The Antiquities Act desperately needs some kind of reform because it is being abused today.”

Watch the full panel here

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

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.

Trump to review Maine monument designation, may expand offshore drilling

April 24, 2017 — President Trump will sign executive orders this week aimed at expanding offshore oil drilling and reviewing national monument designations made by his predecessors, continuing the Republican’s assault on President Obama’s environmental legacy.

The orders could expand oil drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans and upend public lands protections put in place in Utah, Maine, and other states. The Antiquities Act of 1906 authorizes the president to declare federal lands of historic or scientific value to be ‘‘national monuments’’ and restrict how the lands can be used.

Administration officials on Monday confirmed the expected moves. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the president’s upcoming actions.

Obama used his power under the Antiquities Act to permanently preserve more land and water using national monument designations than any other president. The land is generally off limits to timber harvesting, mining and pipelines, and commercial development.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Trump staff reviewing Obama’s designation of Maine, Utah national monument sites

March 6, 2017 — Republican leaders in Maine and Utah are asking President Trump to step into uncharted territory and rescind national monument designations made by his predecessor.

The Antiquities Act of 1906 doesn’t give the president power to undo a designation, and no president has ever taken such a step. But Trump isn’t like other presidents.

Former President Obama used his power under the act to permanently preserve more land and water using national monument designations than any other president. The land is generally off-limits to timber harvesting, mining and pipelines, and commercial development.

Obama created the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine last summer on 87,500 acres of donated forestland. The expanse includes part of the Penobscot River and stunning views of Mount Katahdin, Maine’s tallest mountain. In Utah, the former president created Bears Ears National Monument on 1.3 million acres of land that’s sacred to Native Americans and is home to tens of thousands of archaeological sites, including ancient cliff dwellings.

Trump’s staff is now reviewing those decisions by the Obama administration to determine economic impacts, whether the law was followed and whether there was appropriate consultation with local officials, the White House told The Associated Press.

Maine Republican Gov. Paul LePage is opposed to the designation, and says federal ownership could stymie industrial development. Republican leaders in Utah contend the monument designation adds another layer of unnecessary federal control in a state where there’s already heavy federal ownership.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

OPINION: Obama’s Political Monuments

January 3, 2017 — President Obama is settling accounts before leaving office, and then some. This week he delivered a parting gift to Democratic Senator Harry Reid and parting shot at Utah Republicans by designating two new national monuments in their respective states.

Desert and canyon landscapes in the West are among the most majestic in America, and Mr. Obama has cited cultural treasures as a pretext for consecrating 1.3 million acres in southeastern Utah (Bears Ears) and 300,000 acres in southern Nevada (Gold Butte). The real goal is to shield land-use decisions from public input.

Sixteen presidents have invoked the Antiquities Act to establish 152 national monuments, though rarely in defiance of state and local lawmakers as President Obama has now done. The 1906 law was intended to let Presidents act expeditiously to protect national treasures from desecration. Mr. Obama has used it to wall off more land than any of his predecessors.

The Antiquities Act instructs the President to designate “the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected,” yet Bears Ears is nearly twice the size of Rhode Island and one million acres bigger than Utah’s largest national park. Most desert land around Gold Butte is already protected, but the Obama Administration says the national monument is needed as a wildlife corridor for desert bighorn sheep and the Mojave Desert tortoise. Don’t expect predator species to respect the sanctuary habitat.

Read the full opinion piece at the Wall Street Journal

Rep. Rob Bishop: Antiquities Act abuse heads East

June 27, 2016 — The following is excerpted from an opinion piece by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, published Saturday by the Boston Herald. Rep. Bishop visited New Bedford, Mass., earlier this month, where he met with Mayor Jon Mitchell, Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA), and representatives of the local commercial fishing industry. He also toured a local scallop vessel, the New Bedford harbor, the Fairhaven Shipyard, and a scallop processing company.

Some say cultural trends start on the West Coast and make their way East, but one trend moving eastward is bad news for New Englanders.

In my home state of Utah, the federal government owns 65 percent of the land. That is a problem. In the waning days of his administration, President Clinton compounded the problem by mandating the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. With virtually no local support, he locked up 1.7 million acres of Utah, an area larger than some states.

This monument designation was an abuse of the Antiquities Act. Passed in 1906, the Antiquities Act was originally intended for presidents to quickly prevent looting of archaeological sites. The executive power exercised under the Antiquities Act has grown far beyond the original purpose.

Now [President Obama] has his sights set on New England fisheries off the coast of Cape Cod.

Earlier this month I traveled to New Bedford, the highest-grossing commercial fishing port in our country. I spoke with local seafood workers about a potential marine monument designation off the coast. Such a designation would override the current public process of established fisheries management and could be catastrophic to the 1.8 million-plus jobs that fishing creates.

Fishing leaders expressed concern over restricted access, potential job loss, and the damage to the local fishing industry that would obviously follow a marine monument designation. Instead, they want a better public process created under the House-passed Magnuson-Stevens Act, still pending renewal in the Senate.

Read the full opinion piece at the Boston Herald

Deseret News: Antiquities Act and underwater monuments

October 6, 2015 — The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was created by President Bill Clinton well over 20 years ago, but for many southern Utah residents whose livelihoods were affected by this arbitrary and unilateral exercise of executive authority, the wounds are still fresh. That monument also placed billions of dollars of clean-burning coal off limits forever. Since those resources were located on school trust lands that provide funding for public schools, Utah students paid, and continue to pay, a steep price for this massive executive overreach.

The lesson that should have been drawn from that episode is that the 1906 Antiquities Act, the legal justification that allows presidents to create national monuments for “the protection of objects of historic and scientific interest,” is outdated, overused and too easily abused. While the designation of these monuments is supposed to be confined to areas of historical significance and limited to “the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected,” this language has done nothing to prevent presidents from making designations of whatever size and location they choose with no congressional input or oversight.

Read the full editorial at Deseret News