Trump’s interior secretary wants to shrink national monuments

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke called for shrinking the boundaries of 10 national monuments and lifting current restrictions on logging and mining in and around these protected lands, according to a memo obtained by the Washington Post.

Zinke’s advice is contained in a 19-page memorandum sent to the president late last month, after a review of 27 monuments at least 100,000 acres or more in size.

“This entire review process has been a sham”, Jaina Moan said.

Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., who led efforts to stop any adjustment to monuments on California’s coast, said he was relieved that Zinke’s leaked recommendations apparently spared them, but he urged the president to make the report public.

In his memo, Zinke acknowledges that tourism related to the monument status fosters jobs and local businesses.

The legal battle over the Grand Canyon involved 818,560 acres-an vast size in 1907, but considerably smaller than the 1.35 million acres set aside for Bears Ears and the 1.8 million acres that became the Grand Staircase Escalante.

“Adherence to the Act’s definition of an “object” and “smallest area compatible” clause on some monuments were either arbitrary or likely politically motivated or boundaries could not be supported by science or reasons of practical resource management”, Zinke found. President Obama designated the Bears Ears and Gold Butte monuments in December 2016, just weeks before leaving office. The Associated Press said it was not clear from the memo how much energy development would be allowed on the sites recommended for changes, although the memo cites increased public access as a key goal. “We will have to wait to see what potential legal actions by outside entities are generated and see how things work out from there”. None of the sites would revert to new ownership, he said, while public access for uses such as hunting, fishing or grazing would be maintained or restored.

“As always, the devil is in the details”, Adams said.

“The way that our country utilizes its cattle and beef industry has radically changed in the past 21 years”, she said.

Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift referred questions about the memo to the White House.

Zinke says in his memo to Trump that there are “several billion tons of coal and large oil deposits” within its boundaries.

The 1906 Antiquities Act, passed during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, allows presidents to create national monuments from federal lands that are considered historic, geographically or culturally important.

A law signed in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt, called the Antiquities Act, gives presidents the authority to establish national monuments without a vote of Congress, something that almost every president has done since then.

“The only way it could be better if it was from the same year the O&C act happened, because it was the same lawyer who worked on the O&C act, he knew the legislative intent”, Freeman said. Landowners representing more than 14,000 acres of adjacent private land in the expansion area also supported the larger monument, as did the local state legislators in whose districts the original monument was located, the Klamath Tribes, Oregon’s Gov.

Gold Butte National Monument is roughly 300,000 acres designated to protect natural habitat for Bighorn Sheep, mountain lions and the Mojave Desert tortoise.

Sarah Shrader, owner of Grand Junction-based Bonsai Design, which builds outdoor adventure courses, has been calling for recognition by Zinke and Trump of the economic value of monuments.

Dave Sanchez of the Northern New Mexico Stockmen’s Association said not reducing the size of the monuments amount to an endorsement of the actions taken by the Obama administration. “How about helping us with infrastructure or broadband or helping us fund our crumbling schools?”

Clair, whose family donated the more than 87,000 acres for the monument, says the recommendations did not come as a surprise.

Lynne, we have the American people on our side – remember, more than 2.8 million people submitted comments during Zinke’s “review” of these monuments – but to fight the Trump administration on so many fronts, we need your help now.