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Antiquities Act Executive Order: An Opportunity to End a Monumental Abuse of Government Power
Townhall.com ^ | May 5, 2017 | Congressman Paul Gosar

Posted on 05/05/2017 4:09:04 AM PDT by Kaslin

Over the last 20 years, presidents from both sides of the aisle have used the stroke of a pen to lock up hundreds of millions of acres using the Antiquities Act, but none more egregiously than President Obama. In 2014, then-President Obama said, “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone. And that’s all I need.” This braggadocious one-liner was the basis for devastating monument designations by the Obama administration. President Trump’s recent Executive Order directs Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to review national monuments created by the Antiquities Act since 1996 that exceed 100,000 acres and to coordinate with local stakeholders. These communities that were shut up and shut out of the charade of discussions surrounding national monument designations deserve a voice.

Like many laws, the Antiquities Act had good intentions, but in practice, it has morphed into a tyrannical tool for presidents to exercise unfettered land grabs at the expense of state and local interests. Enacted in 1906, the Antiquities Act was originally designed to protect Native American burial grounds and artifacts, as well as landmarks and structures that are of historic or scientific interest. Further, the monuments were to “be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”

Over the past century, presidents have utilized the Act a total of 233 times to designate roughly 840 million acres of land and water as national monuments. This staggering figure is in addition to a massive federal estate that now exceeds 635 million acres. President Obama’s unprecedented abuse of the Act locked-up an astonishing 553,599,880 acres, or 66% of all land and water designated as a national monument under this century old law. No one in their right mind could possibly believe that 553 million acres is the “smallest area compatible” for these new monuments.

National monument designations utilizing the 1906 Act have significant implications for energy development, water rights, wildfire prevention, grazing rights, and other crucial land management activities. More often than not, these declarations also result in some of the most restrictive land-use regulations possible, thereby negatively affecting a myriad of recreational activities. Not to mention the fact that unilateral designations that lack congressional, state, local and tribal support typically result in devastating losses and costs for education and infrastructure.

Hitting the mute button on state and local stakeholders while elevating the priorities of environmentalist factions, President Obama designated both the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah and the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine during his waning days in office. Special-interest groups were permitted to overwhelm the voices of those whose daily lives, sacred rituals and outdoor recreational pursuits are impacted most significantly by such designations.

Concerning Bears Ears, Rebecca Benally, a Diné and Navajo woman testified that, “Traditional Utah Navajo people are not magazine environmentalists but are real stewards of the land whose interests will be destroyed by a Bears Ears National Monument. Grassroots Utah Navajo people do not support this effort to convert our sacred lands into a federal designation that will subjugate them to micromanagement by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.”

Additional local tribal opposition to the Bears Ears National Monument was voiced by Suzette Morris, a Ute Mountain Ute tribe member and Vice President of Stewards of San Juan County. She stated, “We have cemeteries up there and I don’t want our ancestors to be put in museums…We all have a fight and we all are going to continue to fight for this to be rescinded.”

The Bears Ears land grab was also not the first time that Utahns saw tens of thousands of acres ripped away from the Utah School and Institutional Trust Land Administration (SITLA). The Trust lost 176,000 acres in 1996 after President Clinton designated 1.7 million acres in Utah as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. With President Obama’s 2016 Bears Ears designation, another 109,000 acres of SITLA land were locked-up. SITLA generates important revenues for Utah’s K-12 public education system, and as a result of two strokes of a pen, 20 years apart, the Utah public school system fell victim to what can only be described as blatant executive overreach and generational theft.

Unfortunately, there are countless other examples throughout our nation’s history of these types of land grabs. After an unsuccessful campaign to accrue congressional, state or local support for a national park in Maine, Roxanne Quimby, founder of Burt’s Bees and Elliotsville Plantation Inc., donated nearly 88,000 acres and $40 million to circumvent Congress. One day after the donation, President Obama designated the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. This glaring example of pay-to-play politics is particularly shameful in light of the vehement opposition by those who have worked on and enjoyed the land for generations. Maine’s economy, heavily driven by forest products and industry jobs, will be severely impacted by this monument.

Reform to cure this abuse is necessary. Wyoming has the right idea. After President Roosevelt tested the very limits of the Act in 1943, Congress passed a law requiring any new monument designation in Wyoming to have congressional consent. After Jimmy Carter used the Act as carte blanche to designate 17 national monuments in Alaska, Congress limited future designations in the state to 5,000 acres or less.

Communities whose backyards are the subject of this debate deserve to have a seat at the table when important land management decisions are made that affect their livelihoods. President Trump’s Executive Order provides an opportunity for that coordination and ensures that out-of-state and out-of-touch groups do not drown out the voices of the communities most deeply impacted by these monuments.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; US: Arizona
KEYWORDS: antiquitiesact; barackhussein0bama; executiveorder; nationalmonuments; presidenttrump

1 posted on 05/05/2017 4:09:04 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Pass legislation then Congresswoman amending or abolishing the law. Because the next Rat President will just reverse it and continue grabbing land.


2 posted on 05/05/2017 4:12:38 AM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist (Man-made global liberalism is killing the planet)
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To: Kaslin

Again, and as always.....THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP!!!!!


3 posted on 05/05/2017 4:14:59 AM PDT by Guenevere (If my people......will humble themselves and pray and seek my face .....I will heal their land...)
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To: Kaslin

I know about the tin foil hat brigade but if you know about the globalist and UN agenda 21 you will know that the objective is to control as much land as possible and force the population into more manageable urban areas over time.Reasons why they do this. Its not because they love the land, respect the beauty, fell responsible that they should protect it for future generations, its about total control


4 posted on 05/05/2017 4:21:13 AM PDT by ronnie raygun (Trump plays chess the rest are still playing checkers)
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To: Guenevere

Bump


5 posted on 05/05/2017 4:28:21 AM PDT by Kaslin ( The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triump. Thomas Paine)
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To: Kaslin

Save


6 posted on 05/05/2017 4:36:40 AM PDT by submarinerswife (Allahu FUBAR)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

Google up:

government owned land in usa

and click on “images”.


7 posted on 05/05/2017 4:54:32 AM PDT by QBFimi (It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world... Tarfon)
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To: Kaslin

Clinton closed off one of the two large sources of clean-burning coal in payment to his Sino-Indonesian buddy who had control of the only other source of clean coal.


8 posted on 05/05/2017 4:55:40 AM PDT by arthurus
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To: ronnie raygun

They can’t control the people if they can’t control where they live!


9 posted on 05/05/2017 4:56:01 AM PDT by Beagle8U (United for flying 1,000 miles for a camel (toe).)
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To: Kaslin

The sites to be preserved are not Navajo. To follow the testimony of a Navajo is to ignore the fact the antiquities are actually Hopi and Pueblo.

The words of a Navajo are totally irrelevant to the issue.

Bears Ears is north of the vast Navajo reservation.


10 posted on 05/05/2017 4:59:33 AM PDT by bert (K.E.; N.P.; GOPc;WASP .... Hillary is Ameritrash, pass it on)
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To: Kaslin

Bkmk


11 posted on 05/05/2017 5:32:49 AM PDT by sauropod (I am His and He is Mine)
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To: Kaslin

Obama is an enemy of America and should be treated as such.


12 posted on 05/05/2017 5:59:42 AM PDT by jimbug
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To: bert
The sites to be preserved are not Navajo. To follow the testimony of a Navajo is to ignore the fact the antiquities are actually Hopi and Pueblo.

Does that negate the fact that she's right about federal land grabs and bureaucratic bullsnot?

13 posted on 05/05/2017 6:20:12 AM PDT by IYAS9YAS (An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees! - Kipling)
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To: Beagle8U

“They can’t control the people if they can’t control where they live!”........

Bingo, Bingo, Bingo......We have a winner.

Not long ago I recall read something about a female U. Wis. professor who wanted that done right here in Wisconsin. Going to be a hell of a rough time pulling that off.


14 posted on 05/05/2017 7:00:36 AM PDT by DaveA37
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To: DaveA37
"Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above
Don't fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don't fence me in"
15 posted on 05/05/2017 7:22:37 AM PDT by Enterprise ("Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire)
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To: Beagle8U; ronnie raygun; All

>They can’t control the people if they can’t control where they live!

The last part of that, IMO, was O’Care.

They control the property (taxes, etc.)
They control what you can DO on said property one ‘owns’ (Commerce Clause, Wickard v.)
Food/drugs/guns...

Now, they’ve taken over the biggest/baddest of all....your health.

It only took ~8yrs. to get the (R) sign on the bottom line. They needed the time to sweeten the pot and dupe their base.

Next, they should be coming after the 401k/ROTHs/etc.


16 posted on 05/05/2017 7:50:49 AM PDT by i_robot73 ("A man chooses. A slave obeys." - Andrew Ryan)
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To: arthurus

...and rare-metal sites.


17 posted on 05/05/2017 7:53:58 AM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation camp?)
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To: Kaslin

1,340,000 square miles.


18 posted on 05/05/2017 8:24:45 AM PDT by The_Republic_Of_Maine (politicians beware)
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To: IYAS9YAS

The land is already federally owned so there is not really a federal land grab. Not only that no one wants it or it would already be private.

The problem is closing to oil and mining interests. I don’t know if there are probable prospects being denied


19 posted on 05/05/2017 10:11:42 AM PDT by bert (K.E.; N.P.; GOPc;WASP .... Hillary is Ameritrash, pass it on)
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To: i_robot73
Next, they should be coming after the 401k/ROTHs/etc.

The only upside to having to liquidate my 401k before retirement - at least they won't get their greedy paws on it.

20 posted on 05/05/2017 10:30:36 AM PDT by ELS
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