EDITORIAL: Donald Trump and the Antiquities Act

Donald Trump’s interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, will be in Nevada later this month to tour two new national monuments, Gold Butte and Basin and Range. That’s a welcome departure from the previous administration, which simply waved a magic wand from 2,400 miles away to restrict land use across wide swaths of the state.

The president has vowed to roll back a number of designations Barack Obama made under the 1906 Antiquities Act, which could affect the two new Nevada monuments. Mr. Zinke recently recommended that one such recent designation in Utah — Bears Ears — be downsized from its current 2,000 square miles.

Environmentalists will no doubt fight the decision in court. Expect a similar response if Mr. Zinke makes changes at Gold Butte or Basin and Range.

The Associated Press reported over the weekend that other presidents have previously made adjustments to monument boundaries — 18 times according to the National Park Service. Nevertheless, “environmentalist groups and others gearing for a fight” say the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act restricts a president’s right to narrow the scope of a national monument.

The courts will eventually have the final say. But all this legal wrangling simply offers another reason for repealing the Antiquities Act. Major decisions about federal land designations should be in the hands of legislative branch, not the purview of an imperial president or the bureaucracy.

If members of Congress or the president seek to create a new national monument, let lawmakers hold hearings and cast votes. The same process should apply for any subsequent movement to tinker with or eliminate such designations. That’s called representative democracy.

Las Vegas Review-Journal

Utah Legislature votes to shed Bears Ears monument designation

An indignant Utah Senate voted 22-6 Friday to urge the unraveling of the Bears Ears National Monument designation in San Juan County, bristling at the process used under the Antiquities Act and what they say was indifference to a majority of statewide sentiment. Sen. Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy, the Senate sponsor of HCR11, said if a monument designation had been made for the Bears Ears region via congressional legislation subsequently signed by the U.S. president, he wouldn't be arguing against the new monument. "It's absolutely wrong," the Senate president said, asserting the legislative process was circumvented with one person's pen via presidential proclamation. The 1.35 million-acre monument was created in late December by former President Barack Obama in the waning days of his administration and was largely seen as a poke in Utah's eye...more

Remember, Obama said "Hi from Hawaii" on this one:


Obama was vacationing in Hawaii with his family over the holidays when the White House made the announcement on Dec. 28. "I find it insulting that President Obama couldn't even interrupt his golfing in Hawaii" for the monument designation, said Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross.


Did Obama score a hole-in-one with this designation, or was it a triple bogey? Triplicates - The Republican-controlled House, Senate and Presidency - hold the score card in their hands.

 

Lessons Zinke can learn from Interior secretaries’ successes and failures

By Rocky Barker

Montana Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke awaits the chance to tell the senators who will consider his nomination why President-elect Donald Trump made a good call picking him to lead the Department of the Interior.

I hope he reaches out to former secretaries from both parties for advice. I have been lucky enough to have interviewed all but one of the Interior leaders since former Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus held the job in the 1970s.

Zinke can learn from their experiences, good and bad. He says he will govern in the tradition of President Theodore Roosevelt, who advanced both preservation and wise use of our resources.
Idaho’s Andrus led in that very tradition.

When Andrus told President Jimmy Carter to use the Antiquities Act of 1906 to set aside 56 million acres of Alaska as national monuments, the president was incredulous. “Can I do that?” Carter asked.
“You have the authority, sir,” answered Andrus, according to his memoir.

“Let’s do it,” Carter said.

The monuments forced Alaska’s congressional delegation to cut a deal on the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, setting aside 103 million acres as national parks, wildlife refuges, wild and scenic rivers, and wilderness areas.

The Andrus lesson: Have the ear of the president, work with Congress, but also be bold.

READ THE ENTIRE COLUMN

Barker also presents lessons from Watt, Lujan and Babbitt.

Notice too the leverage the Antiquities Act gives the Executive Branch.  In the example given the act was used to "force" Congress to set-aside 103 million acres. The Antiquities Act of 1906 was a tool granted to the Executive Branch by the Congress. Imagine that you loaned a tool to an associate and this associate would on a regular basis knock you in the head with the borrowed tool. Rather than taking a beating every four years or so wouldn't you call in the loan and put an end to the violence? And for the same reason, why hasn't Congress revoked this authority? What a foolish situation.