PUBLIC LANDS: Obama designates 5 new monuments
Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
E&E PM: Monday, March 25, 2013
President Obama signed proclamations this afternoon designating five national monuments: a sprawling New Mexico desert, sites important to Colonial and African-American history, and islands in Washington state.
The designations were cheered by conservationists, historical preservationists, local officials and lawmakers of both parties who had introduced legislation to protect the sites, though some Republicans questioned the need for new designations and the costs of managing them.
The designations are aimed, in part, at quieting critics who in recent months have called on the president to expand his use of the 1906 Antiquities Act to conserve land as compensation for lands the administration has made available for oil and gas development.
The monuments are the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument in New Mexico; the San Juan Islands National Monument in Washington state; the First State National Monument in Delaware; the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument on Maryland's Eastern Shore; and the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Xenia, Ohio.
"These sites honor the pioneering heroes, spectacular landscapes and rich history that have shaped our extraordinary country," Obama said. "By designating these national monuments today, we will ensure they will continue to inspire and be enjoyed by generations of Americans to come."
The largest monument by far is the 243,000-acre Rio Grande del Norte, a rugged river gorge and plateau in northern New Mexico that Obama described as a "stark and sweeping expanse" of canyons, volcanic cones, wild rivers and native grasslands. It will be managed by the Bureau of Land Management as part of the National Landscape Conservation System.
Environmentalists have called the area one of the most ecologically significant in the state, citing its importance to elk, bald eagles, peregrine falcons and great horned owls. The Rio Grande Gorge and Taos Plateau are also used extensively by hunters, rafters and hikers.
"The protection of the Río Grande del Norte will preserve its cultural, prehistoric, and historic legacy and maintain its diverse array of natural and scientific resources, ensuring that the historic and scientific values of this area remain for the benefit of all Americans," Obama said in his proclamation.
While new mining and oil and gas leasing will be prohibited, valid existing rights, including transmission rights of way, will be maintained, in addition to grazing and the traditional collection of firewood and pinyon nuts for personal noncommercial use, the proclamation states.
The San Juan Islands monument, which protects nearly 1,000 acres on an archipelago of more than 450 islands, rocks and pinnacles off Washington, aims to protect archaeological sites; historic lighthouses; and opportunities for kayaking, hiking and wildlife watching, among other uses. It will also be managed by BLM.
The other three monuments will be managed by the National Park Service, which brings the agency's total number of parks, monuments and historical units to 401.
They were made possible through land donations from the National Park Foundation, the Conservation Fund, Delaware and its capital, Dover, among other groups. A Park Service official said no private lands were included in the designations, as required by law.
The Charles Young monument will preserve the home of Col. Charles Young, who was the third African-American to graduate from West Point and first to achieve the rank of colonel, according to the White House. Before the National Park Service was established in 1916, Young was an Army superintendent in charge of protecting Sequoia and General Grant national parks.
The First State monument, comprising just under 1,000 acres, will preserve and interpret the early Dutch, Swedish, Finnish and English settlements of the colony of Delaware and the state's role as the first to ratify the Constitution, the White House said. It is also significant because Delaware was the last state without a national park unit.
The Harriet Tubman monument will include nearly 12,000 acres of landscapes that are significant to Tubman's early life in Dorchester County and commemorate her role as a conductor on the Underground Railroad that provided a route to refuge for enslaved people.
Republican critics
While all five monuments enjoyed broad local and bipartisan support, leading House Republicans said they were concerned about the costs of managing them as federal budgets are cut by the sequester.
"The Obama administration not only sees the sequester as an opportunity to make automatic spending reductions as painful as possible on the American people, it's also a good time for the president to dictate under a century-old law that the government spend money it doesn't have on property it doesn't even own," House Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) said last week.
"Over 100 years ago, the Antiquities Act was passed to allow a president to act when there was an emergency need to prevent destruction of a precious place -- yet President Obama is acting on simple whim as no imminent threat of destruction or harm is posed at any of these five locations."
The monuments do not authorize or appropriate new federal dollars, but critics note that they will force federal agencies to stretch existing budgets even thinner.
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), who chairs the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulations, said presidential monument designations are the "wrong way" to preserve public lands.
"The fact that Congress doesn't capitulate to the president's political whims on his specific timeline is hardly justification for taking unilateral action," he said.
But some Republicans who had sponsored legislation to protect the sites lauded the president for taking action.
"Col. Young's tremendous academic achievements and selfless acts of valor in the military have long been treasured by Ohioans, and now this national monument will further honor his rich legacy and preserve it for future generations across the country to enjoy," said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who had sponsored a bill with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) to incorporate the house into the Park System.
In a statement to the media, the White House today said each of the monuments is expected to promote economic growth in local communities through increased tourism and outdoor recreation.
The administration cited a National Parks Conservation Association study in 2006 that found each federal dollar invested in national parks generates at least $4 of economic value to the public.
"You can see local economies growing up around the designation of these properties, that as visitors come to enjoy these new national monuments that will have a stimulative impact on the local economies in these communities," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
"It's my understanding, however, that a lot of the land for these new national monuments was either land that was already owned by the federal government or was donated," he said, referring specific questions to NPS and BLM. "In terms of the immediate costs, in terms of the management of the land, I think they're pretty minimal, in their early stages."
