Biden commits to 450,000 acre national monument in Nevada

.

..Two decades ago, Congress preserved the mountain — called Avi Kwa Ame (ah-VEE-kwah-may) in Mojave — and 33,000 acres around it as wilderness. Now the Biden administration is readying a proclamation that could put roughly 450,000 acres — spanning almost the entire triangle at the bottom of the Nevada map — off limits to development under the 1906 Antiquities Act.

When finalized, it will probably rank as the largest act of land conservation that President Biden will undertake this term...

...Some renewable energy advocates warn it could undercut the nation’s climate goals. But wind and solar companies, Desai said, will have to stay on the other side of the monument boundaries.

...Tribes spread out along the Colorado River have adopted resolutions endorsing a monument, including 27 of 28 tribes in the Inter-Tribal Council of Nevada and all 21 in the Inter Tribal Association of Arizona.This expanse of Nevada offers some of the best prospects for clean energy development in the country. 

...The canyons here produce tremendous wind, and the sun shines 292 days per year, usually without any cloud cover. The area also boasts dozens of mining claims for rare earth elements, now coveted by the clean tech sector.

...The BLM has identified more than 9 million acres of its land in the state for potential large-scale solar projects, according to Interior, and an additional 16.8 million acres for possible wind energy development. The federal government has classified roughly 83 percent of the area the tribes have proposed protecting as either wilderness or “areas of critical environmental concern” as part of an effort to conserve critical desert tortoise habitat...MORE

Watch for my Decenber column, where I predicted this.

Third lawsuit's a charm? New action to protect Sonoran Desert National Monument

 

June 30, 2021

Yesterday, Western Watersheds Project, the Sierra Club, and Advocates for the West filed another lawsuit against the Arizona Bureau of Land Management (Bureau) for failing to protect the unusual native plants, lush cactus forests, diverse wildlife, and cultural resources found within the Sonoran Desert National Monument from the devastating impacts of livestock grazing.

If this sounds familiar, it is. This is the third time we’ve had to sue to get the Bureau to take monument protection seriously. First, we filed in 2008 to force the agency to even consider the effects of livestock grazing. We settled that lawsuit for a date certain for a grazing analysis.

Then we filed suit against the 2012 decision that allowed grazing to continue on some parts of the monument based on a ‘compatibility determination’ that was riddled with problems. We won that lawsuit with the federal court finding that the agency used unsupported methods and failed to explain many of the conclusions in their assessment. The Bureau was ordered back to the drawing board, which resulted in the bad 2020 plan to expand grazing use in the monument.

The Bureau’s 2020 decision was rushed through under the Trump Administration and opens up the entire monument north of Interstate 8 to livestock grazing, despite extensive scientific evidence that livestock damage the resources the monument status is intended to protect.

As Laurie Rule, attorney with Advocates for the West, representing the plaintiff groups in this case, says, “The agency’s ‘science’ went from bad to worse under the 2020 decision, including by relying on improved conditions in areas that had not been grazed for years to justify expanding grazing use.”

It’s unconscionable that the Bureau is so set on grazing some of the most fragile, arid and spectacular lands in the country, despite the risks to the Sonoran desert tortoise, wild bighorn, and unique vegetation. The Bureau also failed to consider damage to cultural and archeological sites caused by livestock grazing the Monument. The monument is the traditional homeland of the O’odham, Yavapai Apache, Cocopah, and Hohokam peoples.

LINK

Note: if you graze livestock in the desert Southwest, especially in a monument or other special designation, you might want to check out those links.

Ryan Zinke Did Big Coal’s Bidding and Gave Away Public Lands, Insider Reveals

A dramatic congressional hearing today revealed proof that Donald Trump’s controversial 2017 decision to dramatically shrink two national monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, was a gift to the energy and mining industries. To Trump’s critics, this seemed obvious even at the time. But now we know that the government official tasked with drawing the final map was told to exclude certain coal-rich areas from the monuments, that secret meetings were held between the Department of Interior and uranium mining interests before the sham public process even began, and that now-EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler was among the lobbyists involved in the secret deals. First, as early as March 2017, then Sen.Utah Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) had provided the Trump administration with a revised map of Bears Ears, in  an email–obtained by The New York Times pursuant to a Freedom Of Information Act request–saying that it would “resolve all known mineral conflicts.”  The final map, adopted in December 2017, was almost identical to Hatch’s map. Second, as first reported by Roll Call, on April 5, 2017, a top Interior Department official held a secret meeting with lobbyists for Energy Fuels Resources, which holds 350 uranium leases in and around Bears Ears. The lobbyists included current EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler, who set up the meeting by noting his work on the Trump presidential campaign...MORE 

 The exact same process occurred to create the Organ Mtns-Desert Peaks National Monument, just with different players. Neither is an example of how federal lands should be managed. And yet, Congress has done nothing to change the law granting one person, the President, the authority to determine the use of millions of acres.  That authority has been, and will continue to be abused until Congress acts.

The dinosaur that ate Ryan Zinke

Alexander Nazaryan

The dinosaur was a Lythronax, a fearsome predator who lived 80 million years ago. Known as the “King of Gore,” it spent its days feasting upon smaller dinosaurs on the continent of Laramidia. The dinosaur died and so did, eventually, all of its brethren. The land morphed, too, and Laramidia became part of what is today the western United States. In 2009, the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees federal lands, discovered remains of the long-departed king in Utah, on land that is part of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. A replica of the skull sits in the office of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, next to a framed picture of Theodore Roosevelt and a tasseled leather notebook, of the sort where one might jot down poetic ruminations while camping out on the high desert of the true West. Earlier this summer, Zinke tweeted a picture of this well-curated tableau, using the occasion of the latest entry in the “Jurassic Park” franchise to offer a mini-lesson:

But if Zinke thought that a dinosaur emoji might curry favor with his audience, he was grievously mistaken. “That specimen was found in a national monument you shrunk so you could sell mining rights,” one user said. “How dare you display this find when you refuse to protect the ones still in the ground, you pathetic grifter.” Zinke had long been among President Trump’s most controversial Cabinet members, with the number of ethical scandals plaguing his administration nearly approaching that of Scott Pruitt, the baroquely corrupt administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency who resigned in early July. Zinke’s tweet — and the furious response it engendered — crystalized one of the criticisms of his tenure, namely that he celebrates his own image as a conservationist frontiersman, even as he effectively gives away lands rich with dinosaur remains and archeological treasures to mining companies and other business concerns...MORE

 That was not a brilliant post by Zinke, but his critics are perpetuating the myth that the dynosaur remains and other artifacts are only protected because of the national monument. They conveniently forget that since Antiquities Act of 1906, Congress has passed the Historic Sites Act of 1935, National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of1966, Archeological and Historic Preservation Act (AHPA) of 1974, Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) of 1979, and the Native AmericanGraves Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990.  Review those statutes and you will see the Secretary of Interior has an abundance of authority to survey, identify, study and preserve any site or object of archeological significance. Further, under Section 204 of FLPMA, the Secretary has the authority to withdraw areas from all forms of disposal and from all mining and mineral leasing. A National Monument designation is not necessary to protect these areas, as all the agencies have to do is implement existing law. And all of those laws apply to any of the land removed from the national monument.