America’s Wild Places Through a Legislative Perspective

Grand Staircase-Escalante Golden Cathedral

<p>A wideangle panoramic view of the impressive Jacob Hamblin arch in Coyote Gulch.</p>

NE Canyons and Seamounts - Atlantic Ocean

<p>A wideangle panoramic view of the impressive Jacob Hamblin arch in Coyote Gulch.</p>

Through the dusty and bug covered windows of the car, you finally see it, the brown sign. This brown sign causes you to stop, pose around it and take a picture. You take one final look at it before closing the door and you breathe in the fresh air around you. After buckling back in, you open Instagram to start posting the picture, but you notice the words “No Service” in the top corner of your phone. For a brief moment, you start to open your mouth to complain to your friends, but instead you smile and realize you are in a different place now. You put your phone in the cup holder and soak in the striking views. That brown sign, the car you’re in, and the people you are with…it’s time travel. You’ve gone back in time and are completely surrounded by the dirt, trees, and rocks. You’re vulnerable and unsure of your surroundings. For the first time in several months you feel free.

On April 26, 2017 the Trump Administration signed an executive order to review 27 national monuments to determine if any need to be downsized or eliminated from Federal protection. This review is on the basis of an act called the Antiquities Act of 1906 that allows presidents to designate any certain place as a National Monument that is under Federal protection. The review is based on seven major considerations (listed at VERY bottom in my own paraphrase to be less legal) for Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior, to measure and make conclusions for the Trump Administration to make a decision. The specific monuments in question are those created since 1996 (under Clinton, Bush, and Obama) that are over 100,000 acres (except for Katadhin Woods and Waters). A couple are highly debated, several are sacred to Native American tribes, most are on land (22), some are marine-based (5 including the world’s largest protected area), but almost all of them have been accepted by the public and local communities.

*IMPORTANT TO READ THIS* — The Antiquities Act of 1906 allows presidents to CREATE these areas, not DESTROY them, so the Trump Administration will have to submit a report that gets 60 votes from the Senate…this is very unlikely unless the report highlights incredibly specific adjustments, reasons, etc. Even though the Republicans have the Senate, 60 votes is INSANE and they must submit a near perfect report to sway them all becasue many are not convinced at the moment.

OKAY, there is the gist of the legal mumbo-jumbo. Below, I will be breaking the rest of the information down as clearly as possible.

I swear I’m not that big of a hippy, I just really love the outdoors and don’t want to see it be taken over by people who have never had a true exposure to all its benefits. I am very opinionated when it comes to the environment and I will flat out say that I am against the trajectory of this Administration in its approach to science and the wild places. Below you will find my own words with a varied level of research. I am merely looking to inform the public on an issue that is being swept under the rug becasue of other antics and worldwide issues. Without further ado, welcome to my mind.

The first question I asked is “why does this review even exist?” This question, believe it or not, has not actually been answered by the Trump administration. There have been quotes from President Trump and his staff that discuss the potential for governmental overreach. President Trump said that the signing of this order will “end another egregious abuse of federal power” and “give that power back to the states and to the people where it belongs.” After digging a little deeper, I found that Trump’s general position on National Parks, National Monuments, and any other Federally protected land is actually fairly negative. After a small publicity-driven donation to the NPS, he cut the Department of the Interior’s budget by “12%,”, driving the annual “budget to new lows,” said Michael Brune, Executive Director of the world-renowned outdoors organization Sierra Club.

So, he is making cuts to funding and now wants to downsize on land that he has never visited and maybe never knew existed until now. Why? After the continued excavation project through many resources I found that a few conservative Republicans in Utah are the ones leading the charge with Trump. Two of the Utah Republicans, Sen. Orrin Hatch and Gov. Gary Herbert, are driving forces behind the returning of these lands back to public hands. They both agree the government reached to far and created land for their own without properly consulting the public beforehand. This is absolutely true in the case of both Bear’s Ears (Obama Administration) and Grand Staircase-Escalante (Clinton). Both of these were established for specific reasons, but neither were completely transparent or clear with the public and neither sought out full, local support before establishment. However, over time the Grand Staircase-Escalante has become for widely accepted and Bear’s Ears is recognized as Native land and is widely respected as such. STILL THOUGH, WHY ARE THEY FIGHTING SO HARD IN UTAH? I’ll give you one hint and one guess in a Jeopardy-esque way “This valuable, underground substance drove Daniel Plainview of There Will Be Blood absolutely mad…” *BUZZ* “What is OIL?”

There you have it folks, oil. The Utah Republicans have come to know that both of the above areas are sitting on top of massive oil reserves and both Clinton and Obama knew this and thought that protecting the wild places and keeping them as truly wild was much better than disrupting the land and drilling into it to find liquid money. So, is the whole 27 monument review really just a ruse to downsize areas that might be covering oil reserves to then bring in more money? I have no clue, but it wouldn’t be totally surprising. Let me say this, I am from a part of the country that values US energy dependence and understands the importance of oil and gas in the country, but this is a non-negotiable for me. People come from all over the world to see our National Parks and Monuments, in fact, in a study done by US Travel Analysis, 1/3 of overseas visitors visit at least one or more of our National Parks/Monuments. This boosts local economies by bringing people in to spend money. Many other companies have started to produce the facts and figures regarding this exact trend of economic benefit of our National Parks/Monuments on local economies. One additional one is Headwaters Economics with their interactive study.

The non-negotiable here is that no wild place needs to be drilled in and polluted by man-made creation any more than already exists. This means that I am super against ANY changes to ANY set aside land. At first, I thought “okay, so maybe if they plan this out and cut Grand Staircase-Escalante by a measly 100 acres and drill way out of the way, that will suffice.” But then I realized the general nature of drilling: a donkey-head oil derrick will drill and drill until a reservoir is completely depleted, then it is left to sit their as an eyesore. Once that is done, they will move to the next sight. In fracking, they will drill and dig underneath the top layers of ground and go in several directions until every foreseeable reservoir is emptied. This will be deplete, then they will move to the next site. This means that in a 100 acre plot of gorgeous Utah desert, there will be oil derricks, remnants of oil industry, new roads for transport, newly destroyed land becasue of construction, and countless other impacts from man-made impact. This is equivalent to nearly 500 football fields by the way. I don’t want to get too deep in desert ecology, so I will just say this, there are fragile organisms in the Utah desert (Cryptobiotic Soil – Crypto to name one) that are the sole reason why certain plants, animals, and others live in that area, if they are damaged, complete habitat change and elimination of species will occur in an area that is being protected currently to replenish these populations. So, it’s a non-negotiable. There is no such thing as minimal impact in the oil/gas industry, and there is no way I will support the destruction of a wild place that changed my life and the lives of some many others.

Okay, rant is over…for now. So, oil may not be the only reason, but for the “highly contested” areas in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado (my stomping grounds), I am convinced this is the underlying driver behind the change. President Trump, no matter what your opinion on him is, has helped point out a major flaw in our National Park/Monuments, they are covering such vast areas with much less resources and human power to actually protect and manage them. This flaw is now out and the open and there are a couple real responses to handle them, based on your political views and opinions. We can either downsize and make the areas more manageable and turn the downsized portions to the states, or we can invest more money into them and increase spending to consider them as a valuable asset to the American Economy.

Let’s talk states’ rights real quick. I am all about states’ rights for a variety of political policies, but for this specific issue, I am not convinced it is the way to go. In order to turn over land from the federal government to the states, there is quite a lot of preparation that must take place. Additionally, there must be a certain standard of protection when the turned over land is under the highest federal protection. This is a highly contested issue that is discussed yearly and can be seen in a document by the Congressional Research Institute. One major issue of the turnover from federal to state is that once the land is owned by a state, it can be used for anything. Therefore, a parcel of land of 100,000 acres of protected land can easily be dropped to 1,000 acres if a state deems they can only safely manage that much. Then, the other 99,000 acres can be used for property development, oil and gas industry, or anything else to develop more space for human impact. In summation, states’ rights is important, but in the fact of land, I don’t know if it is really a good idea to transfer over our wild places of solitude to states that see it as new land to develop becasue that will destroy habitats, ruin ecological standards that the Antiquities Act of 1906 set up, and ultimately continue the unfortunate trend of human depletion of the environment.

The Earth is overpopulated. We have spread out and grown our cities so much that the reaches of some cities is closer than ever before (look at Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. The more we use up land, the more we move our animals and plant species out of the area and increase their risk of survival. We have become the true catalyst in Earth’s species and we have no real understanding of that right now.

However, I don’t want to depress you anymore than I already have. I want to leave you with encouraging words and pictures of some of these monuments. Go visit them and stand up with a vast majority of the country and protect these lands from industry and big money development.

“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” AND “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” – Job 12:7-10 FOLLOWED BY Genesis 2:15.

“Look deep into nature and you will understand EVERYTHING better.” – Einstein

“But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and vulgar things.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Your deepest roots are in nature. No matter who you are, where you live, or what kind of life you lead, you remain irrevocably linked with the rest of creation. “

Seven Considerations for Secretary Ryan Zinke on his visits to the monuments:

Ratio of land size to the ability to manage and take care of it.
1. Make sure it’s not too big and doesn’t disrupt anything around it
Make sure the designated land is appropriately classified:
1. Historical landmark
2. Historic or Prehistoric Structure
3. Any other Objects of Historic or Scientific Interest
By pulling togehter both Antiquities Act (1906) and Federal Land Policy & Management Act (1976), the review will find if the effects of the designation of land are violating any rights for citizens to use Federal lands AS WELL AS looking to see any negative effects on areas outside the boundaries of designation
1. Following Section 102(a)(7) is 102(a)(8) that re-describes the AA (1906): “the public lands be managed in a manner that will protect the quality of scientific, scenic, historical, ecological, environmental, air and atmospheric, water resource, and archeological values; that, where appropriate, will preserve and protect certain public lands in their natural condition; that will provide food and habitat for fish and wildlife and domestic animals; and that will provide for outdoor recreation and human occupancy and use.”
Does the designation effect the way people use and enjoy the Federal lands within it’s boundaries
1. Also According to Wilderness Act of 1964, where it applies.
Will look to SOMEHOW MEASURE the concerns of the governments of state, local, and tribal to see if there are issues regarding potential economic development and fiscal conditions
The availability of Federal resources to properly manage the area
Any other factors the secretary deems appropriate…
1. Whatever that means…