NATIONAL MONUMENTS: House to take up bill requiring NEPA reviews for designations
Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
E&E PM: Thursday, March 20, 2014
The House is scheduled to take up a Republican bill next week aiming to increase transparency in national monument designations -- but one that will rekindle a fiery debate over the president's authority over public lands.
Members will vote on Rep. Rob Bishop's H.R. 1459, which would require the president to conduct a National Environmental Policy Act review before designating more than 5,000 acres of lands, while setting various other limits on the president's monument powers.
Conservationists and Democrats have strongly opposed the measure, arguing presidents of both parties have wielded the Antiquities Act to protect at-risk lands from development. They say executive powers are increasingly important as Congress struggles to pass conservation bills.
But Bishop (R-Utah), a well-known critic of the law, has called it an end-run around Congress that can muffle the voices of public lands users.
While Republicans have long sought limits on NEPA reviews, Bishop is seeking to use the law to the party's advantage. Bill supporters say environmentalists are cherry-picking in their support of NEPA, using it only to block energy projects.
"If NEPA is all that good, NEPA should be applied to the president," Bishop said last July when the Natural Resources Committee marked the bill up on a partisan 26-14 vote (E&ENews PM, July 24, 2013). "If you really believe in the NEPA process, this is reasonable."
Although the Obama administration has sought public input for the 10 national monuments it has designated, Bishop said it's important that that transparency be embedded in law.
The measure is sponsored by seven other Republicans. The Rules Committee is accepting amendments until 3 p.m. Monday. Sources expect a Rules hearing Tuesday and a House vote Wednesday.
Its consideration comes weeks after Obama used the Antiquities Act to add some 1,600 acres in Northern California to the California Coastal National Monument, an act that was roundly embraced locally but that upset House leaders who had successfully shepherded a bill to expand the monument by Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) through the chamber -- only to see the Senate fail to act.
Many expect Obama to designate a half-million-acre monument in southern New Mexico's Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, and he's also being lobbied to protect large landscapes in central Idaho and around Canyonlands National Park. Bishop's bill could significantly slow those efforts, if not quash them.
Committee Democrats strongly opposed the measure, saying 16 presidents of both parties had designated monuments.
"Previous Congresses understood the importance of allowing the Executive Branch to move quickly to conserve resources, particularly given the pace of Congressional action," committee Democrats said in the bill report. "Some of the nation's most cherished and visited National Parks, including the Grand Canyon, were first designated National Monuments because past Presidents had the foresight to set them aside."
Bishop's bill would also require that monument designations be followed by a study estimating long-term management costs and any potential loss in federal and state revenues.
The legislation would exempt monuments smaller than 5,000 acres from NEPA reviews, but even those would require approval by Congress within three years.
The bill would also allow no more than one designation per state during any presidential four-year term, and it prohibits the inclusion of private property without the approval of property owners.
Presidents' final terms are typically when monuments are declared. Past presidents have used the law to burnish their conservation record.
