New Senate Bill Would Protect Existing National Monuments

The bill is a response to the White Condo’s rollback of protections for Utah public lands.

Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) joined Sixteen other democratic senators this week to introduce a bill that would possibly per chance presumably per chance per chance legally codify the boundaries of bigger than 50 nationwide monuments established for the reason that Antiquities Act of 1906, and block the President from changing them. The bill comes per the Trump administration’s latest rollback of protections for nationwide monuments in Utah.

The bill, dubbed the The United States’s Natural Treasures of Immeasurable Quality Unite, Encourage, and Collectively Toughen the Economies of States (ANTIQUITIES) Act of 2018, would attach that most sharp Congress has the vitality to slit nationwide monument boundaries. It would possibly per chance possibly most likely presumably per chance per chance moreover require that the government survey, design, and invent management plans for presidentially-designated nationwide monuments inner two years, and mutter “extra resources” to their repairs.

“President Trump’s remarkable assault on public lands is no longer true form an affront to the overwhelming majority of American citizens who like these precious places — it’s moreover illegal,” Udall talked about in a assertion. “This laws makes it crystal certain that monuments designated thru the Antiquities Act of 1906 would possibly per chance presumably per chance per chance moreover just no longer be altered by future presidents which potential that of most sharp Congress has the authority to alternate a nationwide monument designation.”

Because the White Condo’s resolution to diminish Enormous Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments by proclamation in December, environmental activists and tribal groups beget argued that the Antiquities Act of 1906 does no longer give the president the authority to slit or revoke a nationwide monument designation, a region that some upright students increase. The administration is currently contesting two complaints seeking to forestall these modifications.

A recent Condo bill, launched by Book Have interaction Bishop (R-UT), affords a competing proposal for the Antiquities Act of 1906. Dubbed the National Monument Creation and Protection Act—or, as detractors call it, the “No Extra Parks Act”—the bill would limit the president from rising modern nationwide monuments better than Eighty five,000 acres, and require bid and county recognition of any monument better than 640 acres.

Originally posted 2018-02-11 22:08:46.