President Obama’s Eleventh-Hour Conservation Efforts

By Robert B. Semple Jr.

 Shortly before leaving town for the summer, Congress approved – and President Obama happily signed into law – three bills that, taken together, will preserve as permanent wilderness roughly 275,000 acres of spectacular mountain terrain in Idaho known as  Boulder-White Clouds.  This was a rare moment for a Congress that has been far more interested in  party infighting than environmental stewardship, and a tribute to the perseverance of one person, Congressman Mike Simpson, Republican of Idaho, who spent years engaging with local officials, ranchers,  hunters, tribes, off-road vehicle enthusiasts and other stakeholders.

What has not been widely noticed, however, is that the bill’s success also owed something to widespread fears in Idaho (and in Congress) that if Congress did not act, Mr. Obama would use his powers under the Antiquities Act to declare Boulder-White Clouds a national monument. Such a declaration would offer fewer protections than wilderness designation but would cover a much larger area, greatly reducing access to trails beloved of Idaho’s motorcyclists and snowmobilers.  So great was this threat that the off-roaders and others in deeply conservative Idaho who despise federal intervention of any sort were persuaded to accept Mr. Simpson’s more modest scheme.

It is heartening to see Mr. Obama making more use of the Antiquities Act in his final years in office (if only as a threat), much as Bill Clinton did near the end of his presidency. It is an excellent conservation tool.  The Act, first used by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, allows a president on his own hook to protect endangered areas of great natural or historic significance when Congress is unlikely to act. Originally at the urging of John Podesta, who functioned for a while as his chief adviser on environmental matters, and lately at the urging of Sally Jewell, his Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Obama has now established 19 monuments, three short of Mr. Clinton’s tally. His most recent designations cover 700,000 acres in east-central Nevada, 330,00 acres in Northern California and a small site of archeological significance in Texas.  There are at least two more monuments we would recommend to Mr. Obama before he retires.  One, known as the California Desert, would add more than a million acres to already-protected lands in southeastern California. This is likely to be relatively uncontroversial since it has the backing of both California senators.The other one,  which would cover 1.9 million acres of in the so-called Bears Ears region of southeastern Utah, could be hugely controversial and will take a good deal of preparation and Presidential courage to pull off...more