The House votes TODAY on legislation introduced YESTERDAY. PLEASE CALL YOUR CRITTER!
I am blockquoting Conservation Colorado’s warning and urgent shout out on this. UT neighbor and public lands hater Rep Rob Bishop is attempting to gut current and future National Monuments. It apparently irks him that recreation contributes so significantly to his state’s tax and employment base.
Yesterday (Tuesday), Rep. Rob Bishop (UT) introduced a bill that proposes to gut the Antiquities Act and our National Monuments. H.R. 3990 "To amend title 54, United States Code, to reform the Antiquities Act of 1906, and for other purposes" is entitled the “National Monument Creation and Protection Act.” This bill would radically undermine a conservation legacy sustained by 16 Republican and Democratic presidents.
This bill would, among other drastic proposals:
- limit the Antiquities Act to “Object or objects of antiquity." These are defined narrowly and exclude geographic features and natural objects;
- create arbitrary size limitations for monuments and rules for each, including requiring that monuments be at least 50 miles apart and that the local county, legislature, and Governor approve monuments over 10,000 acres, and prohibiting all monuments over 85,000 acres
- give the President authority to reduce and eliminate enormous swaths of established national monuments (authority the President does not currently have)
- prohibit national monuments to protect our oceans
This bill would cripple the National Monument system. Under the new restrictions it proposes, many of Colorado's public lands would not have been protected, including Dinosaur National Monument, Canyons of the Ancients, Great Sand Dunes, Browns Canyon, and Black Canyon of the Gunnison, as well as many incredible national parks that were first protected as monuments (Grand Canyon, Zion).
The recreation industry pulled its major show from UT last year to protest Bishop et al’s heavy handed attempts to privatize our public lands.
Remember, instead of pursuing coal and timber jobs, the Administration could be supporting recreation:
Americans spend more on outdoor play than they do on their pills and bills — pharmaceuticals and home-utility costs — combined. In 2012, the Outdoor Industry Association reported that Americans drop $646 billion a year on outdoor recreation, supporting 6.1 million jobs and generating $80 billion in local, regional, state and national taxes.