By William Perry Pendley
President Trump has a unique opportunity to
make tangible his concern for forgotten Americans, increase
employment—including high-paying coal miners—and defend the rule of law,
separation of powers, and the Constitution. In the process, he will rob
President Obama of his sole surviving legacy, one that will bedevil
rural people in perpetuity to the utter delight of environmental groups,
one of which cosponsored the “Women’s March.” He can do all this simply
by vacating two national monuments by Obama in 2016 and an especially
egregious one by President Clinton in 1996.
The Antiquities Act of 1906, which
allegedly provides authority for these vast decrees, was never intended
for that purpose. Instead, Congress sought to protect "historic
landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of
historic or scientific interest,” what the House of Representatives
report called “interesting relics [‘ruins’] of prehistoric times” that
are “scattered throughout the [American] Southwest [on] public lands.”
Initially, designations were limited to “320 to 640” acres, but finally
provided for “the smallest area compatible with the proper care and
management of the objects to be protected.” As early as 1911, federal
officials resisted efforts by “patriotic and public-spirited citizens”
to designate monuments for “scenery alone” because the Act does “not
specify scenery, nor remotely refer to scenery as a possible raison d’etre for a public reservation.”
Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin
Roosevelt, and Jimmy Carter exceeded their statutory authority in
frequent uses of the Act, but their actions—some of which were modified
by later presidents or made the subject of congressional
designations—occurred before public land law’s modern era. That began in
1976 with passage of a federal law by which Congress reasserted its
exclusive authority over federal land under the Property Clause in a
belated response to a Supreme Court ruling that it had acquiesced in the
Executive’s usurpation of that power. Thereafter followed decades of
enactments by which Congress provided for the protection of “wild and
scenic rivers,” “wilderness areas,” “endangered or threatened species,”
and other concerns, each of which required an act of Congress and
signature by the president. Congress left the Antiquities Act standing,
theoretically limited to its original purpose, and that is the way it
was viewed by Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, who issued no
decrees.
Not so Clinton who among his many
Antiquities Act edicts, closed one of the world’s best low-sulfur coal
deposits—its mining will create 1,000 local jobs and generate $20
million annually—with the Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument.
So passionate was Utah’s opposition to the monument that Clinton
deceived political leaders—but not Robert Redford—about his plan until
he announced it at Arizona’s Grand Canyon. Today, Garfield County is a
self-declared “economic disaster” area.
Likewise, Obama ignored unanimous State and
local opposition in Maine and used the Act to designate 87,654 acres
purchased for the National Park Service (NPS) as a “seed” for the NPS’s
1988 plan for a 3.2 million acre park contrary to a 1998 federal law
requiring that Congress authorize all new park suitability studies.
Finally, in a belated Christmas gift to Leonardo DiCaprio and other
environmental extremists, Obama thumbed his nose at all Utahans with his
1.35 million acre Bear Ears National Monument in San Juan County.
That President Trump has the authority to
vacate the actions of his predecessors is without question. Just as no
Congress can bind a future one, no president—with a unilateral
decree—can claim to rule forever. That is even more the case given that
Clinton and Obama far exceeded their authority under the Antiquities
Act. Nonetheless, revocation will be fought aggressively by radical
environmental groups and will require the Solicitor General to defend
revocation before the Supreme Court of the United States, but it is the
right thing to do.
Meanwhile, Congress should repeal the
Antiquities Act to prevent lawlessness by any future president who views
rural Americans with disdain.
Pendley is President of the Mountain States Legal Foundation
2 comments:
Mr. Pendley is entirely correct in the need to repeal the Antiquities Act and rescind the land scape scale monument designations. Please ask Mr. Pendley to include the two monuments that Senator Harry Reid demanded in Nevada. First the Basin and Range Monument area which honors some weird kind of artist who lives in Coal Valley and the second is justified on the basis of teaching the Cliven Bundy family a lesson. Both have the effect of the federal government denying private citizens access to their valid existing rights within lands controlled by the federal officials.
I find the statement about the monument being a gift to Leonardo DiCaprio to be ironic, since he is currently going full steam ahead with an eco-development on a barrier island in Belize. Now despite what you think about the environmentally friendly design and restoration, the fact of the matter is given the fears of sea level rise and the increasing frequency and power of tropical storms, the best thing you can do to preserve the barrier island is to not develop it at all.
http://www.businessinsider.com/leonardo-dicaprio-eco-resort-belize-2016-11
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