Chipping away at our national monuments

This week was a double-whammy for our national monuments. First, a bill targeting the monuments was sent to the House floor for debate. Then, a move to make the monuments review more transparent was rejected.

On October 11th a bill was passed by the House Committee on Natural Resources. H.R. 3990, or the “National Monument Creation and Protection Act,” aims to reduce new monuments to a maximum of 85,000 acres, eliminating the inclusion of “vast landscape domains.”

It also lines up more hurdles to designating monuments. Anything bigger than 640 acres would need approval of local and state lawmakers, and monuments would also only be created to preserve specific artifacts — not places of natural, scientific or historic interest.

The bill aims to overhaul the Antiquities Act — legislation introduced by Theodore Roosevelt giving presidents the right to protect places of natural, cultural and scientific interest by giving them national monument status. The Act has paved the way for monuments that Congress later turned into national parks, like the Grand Canyon and Zion.

The committee chair, Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), was the brains behind H.R. 3990. And as expected, the Republican-led committee voted in its favor.

The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Raul Grijalva, (Arizona), said Bishop’s bill “essentially destroys” the Antiquities Act.

Grijalva had also led a Democratic push in the same Committee hearing to release details of Interior Secretary Zinke’s review of national monuments, including Mojave Trails, Sand to Snow and Castle Mountains. As we’ve previously said, this process has been steeped in secrecy. But the committee rejected Grijalva’s move.

Bishop’s bill has been described as the most aggressive legislative attack ever on the Act that underpins our monuments. And it goes hand in hand with an equally attacking stance against the monuments by this Administration.

Now the bill goes to the House floor, and is expected to be debated from the week of October 23rd, at the earliest.

Once again, we need you to pick up the phone and call your local congress member. Tell them that if this bill is passed by Congress, it would be disastrous for our public lands. It would chip away at our natural wonders and lead to fewer national monuments in future. It would be a blow to local economies that depend on national monuments for their livelihood.