National monument proposals in vogue as Obama prepares exit

WASHINGTON (AP) – The race is on to win President Barack Obama’s attention as he puts some final touches on his environmental legacy.

Conservation groups, American Indian tribes and federal lawmakers are urging his administration to preserve millions of acres as national monuments. Such a designation often prevents new drilling and mining on public lands, or the construction of new roads and utility lines.

The flurry of activity is creating enthusiasm – and tensions – in several parts of the country.

Serious efforts are underway in Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Maine and elsewhere to get Obama to designate new national monuments. Proponents aren’t just focused on land. They’re also looking to greater protections for vast swaths of ocean bottom off the coasts of New England, California and Hawaii.

Obama has created or expanded 24 national monuments during his seven-and-a-half-year tenure, the most of any president. Almost nobody thinks he’s done yet. Environmental groups are urging him to go big as he leaves office.

“What he’s done in terms of protection has been good, but what he does next is how we measure whether his legacy is great or not,” said Sharon Buccino of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Proponents of the various monument proposals know that the next administration will have other pressing priorities early on. Some presidents, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, never exercised their powers to designate national monuments through the 1906 Antiquities Act. The proponents recognize the window of opportunity could be closing for several years.

They’re also aware that Obama’s immediate predecessors, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, waited almost exclusively until their final months in office to designate national monuments, so there is a chance Obama will become even more active.

That’s disconcerting for many members in Congress, particularly Republicans, who say the Antiquities Act wasn’t designed to bolster a president’s legacy.

“Presidents are starting to abuse this authority as they leave the office. If they actually tried to do this on the first day so that Congress had some ability to respond to it, and the people did, I’d be more comfortable about what their motives are,” said GOP Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

The House recently passed a spending bill that blocks money for establishing any new national monuments in portions of eight states. While it’s unlikely to gain traction in the Senate, the measure signals the misgivings that many Republicans have about what Obama has in store.

Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, won’t discuss specific national monument possibilities, but said Obama “certainly feels we have more to do to protect this planet from climate change, so we’ll see how this plays out.”

Bishop said lawmakers would work with the administration on additional protections for some public lands, but environmental groups and others are less willing to compromise knowing they can go to the president to get a national monument designation.

“It actually impedes the ability of bringing everyone together knowing the president has this power to create a monument whenever he wants to,” Bishop said.

Goldfuss said the administration works to get extensive local feedback before making any monument determination. She and others such as Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack feed the president information, but in the end, it’s “his decision, his sole decision.”

“It is all about taking the long view here and recognizing there are things of importance to future generations, and the president is in a good spot to make that determination,” Goldfuss said.

Bishop’s state is home to perhaps the most talked about effort, the proposed Bears Ears National Monument.

Utah’s Republican-dominated Legislature overwhelming voted for a resolution opposing the monument. Republican Gov. Gary Herbert said a monument designation would bring more visitors but not necessarily more resources, leading to an increase in vandalism and environmental degradation – just the opposite of what tribes spearheading the monument effort are trying to accomplish.

Bishop is pushing an alternative approach, legislation that calls for additional protections for about 1.4 million acres of the Bears Ears area and opening up other lands for gas and oil exploration and recreation.

Matt Keller, the national monuments campaign director for the Wilderness Society, said he believes the prospects for a monument designation in Bears Ears are promising. Jewell’s fact-finding trip to the region last month shows the administration is serious about protecting the thousands of artifacts and rock carvings documenting how Native Americans lived through the centuries. Five tribes are proposing managing the monument lands in partnership with the federal government.

“A big priority for them is protecting lands that are inclusive of diverse populations and tell the story of the American people a little more broadly,” Keller said.

Across the country, a similar confrontation is taking shape with some environmental groups and lawmakers pushing for the first marine national monument off the coast of New England.

The red crab, swordfish, tuna and offshore lobster fisheries have all voiced concerns that a stroke of the pen could dramatically curtail their ability to make a living. Other marine monuments that have been established generally don’t allow commercial fishing, and while environmental groups said the monument designation would have minimal impact on catches, many are skeptical.

“They’re trying to do an end run around the open process in place to protect fisheries and marine resources,” said Robert Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood, a media liaison for the commercial fishing industry.

Meanwhile, the Democratic delegation from Connecticut wrote Obama last week urging him to move ahead with the new marine monument, saying there is no better time to “cement your legacy as a champion of environmental and historic preservation both on land and at sea.”

A look at various national monument proposals nationally
 
By The Associated Press

–Utah: A coalition of five Indian tribes is leading an effort to designate 1.9 million acres in the southeast corner of the state as the Bears Ears National Monument. The tribes say Native Americans were forcibly removed from the land and marched to reservations, but the land remains important to their heritage and should be protected from mining and what they describe as irresponsible off-road vehicle use and rampant looting. The National Congress of American Indians has also endorsed the effort, which is overwhelmingly opposed by state officials.

–Arizona: Various environmental groups and Indian tribes announced the delivery in July of more than 550,000 petition signatures and comments urging the president to create a buffer zone around Grand Canyon National Park. The proposed Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument would consist of 1.7 million acres outside the park boundaries and prevent new uranium mining. The state’s Chamber of Commerce said the designation would have far-reaching consequences for public access, water rights and resource management, saying a national monument designation would only hurt, not help, the state.

–Maine: A private foundation formed by Roxanne Quimby, co-founder of Burt’s Bees personal care products, has proposed donating about 87,000 acres for the creation of the Maine Woods National Monument. The foundation would also provide a $40 million endowment to support maintenance costs.

–Oregon: Keen Footwear is working with various environmental groups to designate 2.5 million acres in southeastern Oregon, an area twice the size of Yellowstone National Park, as the Owyhee Canyonlands National Monument.

–Nevada: Sen. Harry Reid has voiced his support for the creation of the Gold Butte National Monument, a 350-000-acre region of red sandstone canyons about an hour outside the Las Vegas Strip. The Gold Butte proposal includes land where cattle belonging to rancher Cliven Bundy roamed. Bundy led an armed standoff with federal officials in 2014, and environmental groups complain that Gold Butte’s ecosystem has faced catastrophic damage from illegal cattle grazing and rampant use of off-road vehicles.

–Massachusetts: Some in Congress are calling for the first marine national monument off the continental United States to be located about 150 miles off Cape Cod where a series of canyons and mountains are home to an array of deep sea corals species important to the survival of many fish, whales and sea turtles. The New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument would contain up to 6,173 square miles.