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This man wants to end our national monuments


Congressman Rob Bishop, speaking at the Western Republican Leadership Conference in Las Vegas. Photo by Gage SKidmore.

"Do not be fooled, this is not a minor change to update the law, it’s an attempt to rewrite and undermine the conservation and legal history of our nation."

- National Parks Conservation Association

As per the norm in Washington, D.C., if something is called one thing, it is almost always a sign that it's really the opposite. Such is the case of HR 3990, the "National Monument Creation and Protection Act," a piece of legislation that, if it became law, would effectively end the ability of presidents to designate national monuments under the Antiquities Act.

Oddly enough, the author of this legislation, Utah Republican Congressman Rob Bishop, seems to hate national monuments. He also hates it when someone notices. Bishop, who chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources, continuing a tradition in Washington of putting people in charge of committees who either want to sabotage whatever the committee oversees, or knows absolutely nothing about whatever the committee oversees (or both), has continued to attack outdoor retailer Patagonia over the fact they noticed that this current Republican administration is stealing Americans' national monuments from them in Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante in Utah, his home state.

Bishop not only wrote a patently insulting and condescending, if not outright smarmy, letter to Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, on January 5, that also seems to object to preservation of public lands for national monuments - as an official position of the Committee on Natural Resources.

"It is an indisputable fact that American taxpayer dollars are being used to fund the maintenance, preservation, and upkeep of public lands, and this creates a market for your products," Bishop notes, apparently objecting to the fact that we taxpayers enjoy outdoor recreation, natural beauty, and preservation of some of our natural lands. "Don't get me wrong. I don't begrudge you or other private interests making money. I'm a school teacher who will never be rich, but I have no problem with people making money. What I do object to is people who want to make money on public lands while simultaneously supporting policies that limit the general public's, and my constituents', access to public lands."

So, if I understand Bishop correctly, something like a national park is just a clever ploy by the outdoor recreation industry to make a buck, and if it weren't for them using our public lands to pawn their wares off on us unsuspecting hikers and campers and so forth, those public lands could be used in much more accessible ways (such as strip mining for coal, mining for uranium, drilling and fracking, logging, grazing, etc.).

That such a clearly asinine position can be found on official congressional letterhead, is a sign of the decline of our Congress, something that has been underway since, at least, George Washington's time.

"Although it is your right," Bishop concludes, "living in a bubble isn't healthy, nor is it conducive to a robust discussion on important matters of public policy."

Let's be real clear here: Bishop, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, and the Trump administration, have no interest in any kind of "robust discussion" of public policy. Zinke's review of national monuments made that clear. He ignored an enormous amount of public input and did whatever he, Trump, the coal, uranium, and oil and gas industries, and the Utah congressional delegation, wanted. Period.

Addressing all of Bishop's blatant lies would be a full time job in itself, whether it's ensuring Native American tribes in the area of Bears Ears "get to have real management," which is odd since most of the tribes are suing the Trump administration over the Bears Ears National Monument reduction ordered by the Department of the Interior; or that there are no natural resources within that monument's boundary that would be economically viable to exploit, something contradicted by a uranium mining company that noted the reduction in the monument's boundaries would provide them better access to uranium deposits.

Bishop does appear to believe that the public is stupid. For while he argues that reductions and his legislation doesn't have anything to do with mining, in a Washington Examiner story, he refers to that as a "false narrative," he goes on to say, "What industry does want is the finality so they can know where they can actually do the exploration and where they can't." Uh, if energy companies are exploring, it's because they want to extract something from the ground. If there's nothing there, and you're not reducing boundaries for natural resource extraction purposes, while extolling our strong "America first" (ie: multinational corporations first, screw the public) energy policy, then why would energy companies need that certainty to go off exploring the lands just removed from a national monument?

They wouldn't. Not only does Bishop think we're all stupid, but he's a purposeful liar as well.

Which brings us back to his misleadingly titled piece of legislation, the National Monument Creation and Protection Act, HR 3990.

Over the years, I've had quite a bit of contact with the folks at the National Parks Conservation Association. They're a non-partisan organization whose mission is to support the national treasures we know as national parks, monuments, and preserves. That's an admirable mission, and they're pretty objective and reasonable people. They're also not as stupid as Bishop thinks we all are. Let's see what they have to say about this bill. After all, wouldn't they support legislation that helped create and protect national monuments?

"The National Monument Creation and Protection Act would neither create nor protect parks or monuments. Instead it would block nearly all new parks and monuments by gutting the Antiquities Act and make it easier to roll back protections for existing parks and monuments."

- NPCA position statement

Oh my. That's so confusing. Rob, my head hurts. Why would the NPCA think that the act to create and protect national monuments would block them instead, and gut one of the main ways they're created?

NPCA notes that since President Theodore Roosevelt's time, the Antiquities Act has been a valuable tool in preserving public lands and waters deemed to be, well, worth preserving. I believe Teddy Roosevelt began using the Antiquities Act to declare national monuments in 1906, and he was followed by another 15 presidents, with the total coming out to eight Republicans and eight Democrats. Many of the national monuments designated in this manner have become national parks we Americans have come to cherish, and in the case of some parks like Joshua Tree, perhaps we love them a little too much.

"The radical changes imagined by HR 3990 are a rejection of the spirit and original intent of the law," the NPCA notes. "Had this bill been passed in 1906, our most iconic parks and monuments including the Grand Canyon, Olympic, Zion, Bryce, Acadia, Arches, Grand Teton, Muir Woods and countless others would not have been protected in the first place. In fact, while the new establishment criteria in H.R. 3990 is frustratingly vague, analysis demonstrates that over 70% of all previous national monuments established would not have been eligible for protection under the text of H.R. 3990. Do not be fooled, this is not a minor change to update the law, it’s an attempt to rewrite and undermine the conservation and legal history of our nation."

Yes, but had Rob Bishop and Ryan Zinke and Donald Trump been in office in 1906, they wouldn't have minded, and would have told us how preventing all of these park nuisances was exactly what we really wanted and that they're only doing it all for us. After all, Bishop, Zinke, and Trump didn't care one whit that more than 2.8 million comments were submitted about Trump's highly questionable national monuments review, with more than 99 percent opposing changes to the monuments. No, they completely ignored that, as well as the outdoor recreation industry's decision to pull their major trade show from Utah, and overwhelming tribal support for national monuments under review, and did whatever the hell they felt like, all the while telling us that the entirely documented support for the national monuments constituted some kind of "false narrative." They no doubt went on to moan about the "fake news" that covered that false narrative based entirely upon facts.

Bishop's horror of a bill would:

Extraordinarily narrow the definition of what is deserving of protection (ruling out reasons involving science, geography, wildlife, and natural objects of any sort).

Put arbitrary caps on the size of monuments regardless of what was being protected or why.

Prohibit national monuments to protect oceans.

Give presidents the authority to erase enormous sections of existing national monuments, while making it far more difficult for presidents to protect lands in the future.

Arbitrarily limit the locations of national monuments for no readily apparent reason.

Prevent new national monuments within 50 miles of existing national monuments, no matter the reason for their creation.

Requires local communities and federal employees to undergo a wasteful excessive review of the environmental impacts of protecting the land (while simultaneously making it easier to destroy said land).

Allows a single private property owner to veto designation of a national monument - on public (not private) lands.

In a civilized country, Trump, Zinke, Bishop and his cronies, including Rep. Paul Cook, would be put in straitjackets and taken off somewhere (preferably not a national monument), where they could live out the rest of their lives babbling to each other about federal land grabs and sending Patagonia nasty postcards (No Twitter for any of them!), but here, though they're clearly either insane or corrupt (or both), they're put in power, and reasonable people have to go through enormous efforts to fight to keep them from screwing virtually everything up, from nuclear war to destroying stunningly beautiful and invaluable public lands that were set aside so that our grandchildren's children could understand that once, if only for a time, this country truly was an awe inspiring, beautiful land.

“The National Monument Creation and Protection Act will empower local communities when new monument designations are being considered. I’ve always opposed Presidential abuse of the Antiquities Act, which often provides minimal opportunity for public input, no funding mechanisms, and leaves us with monuments that lack broad local support. This legislation ensures that our local communities have a real voice and that any new monument proposal undergoes careful review,” said Congressman Cook.

- From the Congressional Western Caucus, a lying propaganda mill for the likes of Bishop

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