President Obama is planning to designate a 700,000-acre national
monument in rangelands of east-central Nevada, according to a document
obtained by Rep. Cresent Hardy (R-Nev.) and shared with Nevada media. The six-page draft proclamation was prepared by the White House and
has been circulating among federal agencies the past week, Hardy's
spokesman said, according to a
report in the
Las Vegas Review-Journal. If true, the so-called Basin and Range National Monument in portions
of Lincoln and Nye counties would be Obama's largest land-based
designation yet under the 1906 Antiquities Act, a conservation law that
has been a target of Republicans in Congress including Hardy. In January, Hardy co-sponsored a
bill
by Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) to prohibit the president from designating
national monuments in Nevada without approval from Congress. Hardy said the Basin and Range monument would lie under the airspace
of the Nevada Test and Training Range and include one of the most
heavily used military operating areas in the country. The Air Force and
its partners flew nearly 20,000 aircraft sorties in the area last year,
exercises that would be "drastically impaired as a result of this
monument designation," Hardy said...
more
The proclamation for the Organ Mtns.-Desert Peaks National Monument contains the following language:
Nothing in this proclamation shall
preclude low level overflights of military aircraft, the designation of
new units of special use airspace, or the use or establishment of
military flight training routes over the lands reserved by this
proclamation.
At least the Nev. rep and the public have an opportunity to see and possibly influence the language. We were denied that opportunity in NM. In Colo., the two Democrat Senators intervened for the Cattlegrowers organization, our two Democrat Senators did neither. No transparency and no help.
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