The feds say they aren't sneaking around behind our backs, plotting a land grab of epic proportions. However, the Interior Department is considering two areas in Utah as future national monuments. Since they are already mostly public lands, managed by the federal government, that's hardly a land grab. But setting aside these starkly beautiful areas as national monuments would have a huge impact on Utahns. With the exception of some parcels owned by the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, they are not state-owned. But they are used for grazing and are popular recreation sites. Since a department memo listing the two Utah sites as possible monuments surfaced last week, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Gov. Gary Herbert have talked. Herbert says he is confident Interior won't move ahead without first laying some groundwork with locals. Salazar says he will meet with the governor's Balanced Resources Council, and the governor plans to have conversations with Salazar's top deputy and the head of the Bureau of Land Management, which now oversees the two tracts...read more
Also see:
In the West, ‘Monument’ Is a Fighting Word
Obama to create new national monuments?
Hatch calls White House to complain about monument plan
My original post disclosing this plan is here.
COMMENT: Neither the NY Times, the Salt Lake Tribune, nor Senator Hatch or Governor Herbert mention the other part of this program disclosed in my original post - the acquisition of 26 million acres of private land. The Tribune says the program is "hardly a land grab." Twenty-six million acres transferred to the feds is not a land grab? I wonder if they've even read the document. One also has to ask why Hatch & Herbert, both Republicans, aren't raising this as an issue. At least the public will have some say in that phase of the program - the funds must be appropriated by Congress.
CORRECTION: That should be 2.6 million acres, not 26.
3 comments:
Frank: I can't help but be reminded of the Clinton Administration's surprise move to create the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996. Just so happened it was an election year--and it served as Clinton's perfect bone to throw to the Sierra Clubbers et al. Not to mention the fact that he didn't stand to take Utah, anyway. If nothing happens with these lands right away, just wait until early 2010!
Whoops. Of course I meant 2012!
JR
So it was an election year and it served as Clinton's perfect bone to throw to the Sierra Clubbers et al. Not to mention the fact that he didn't stand to take Utah, anyway.
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