County Resolutions Target Antiquities Act Abuse

• Property Theft by Presidential Decree
• Get Your County to Adopt a Resolution for Reform

The Antiquities Act of 1906 preceded the creation of land management agencies currently in existence.  During the 18th century, profiteers purchased or stole historic objects and lands.  Congress, fearing the loss of historic locations and relics, gave the President sole authority to protect antiquities with some stated limitations, primarily that the land taken be "confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected."

Despite the good intentions of Congress, the 1906 Antiquities Act allows the President alone to steal private land in the name of the government and does not provide redress for local governments and private landowners whose property and livelihoods were confiscated.  The provision limiting the amount of land to be taken has been largely ignored. 

Senators Mike Lee and John Curtis of Utah introduced the Ending Presidential Overreach on Public Lands Act to modernize the Antiquities Act of 1906 and end the executive branch's abuse of its monument designation authority (more on the bill below).  The bill gives Congress the sole power to modify or revoke national monument designations and prevents the President from making unilateral decisions regarding national monuments, thereby promoting a more balanced approach to land management.

To support congressional efforts to reform the Antiquities Act and allow for local control of the process, Luna County, NM, adopted a resolution to that effect and is asking other counties in the United States to sign it.  Their plan is to bring a large number of signed resolutions to the annual meeting of the National Association of Counties (NaCO) in Washington D.C. this March.

Related Story: Trump administration will consider redrawing boundaries of national monuments as part of energy push

• Declaring gargantuan national 'monuments' the size of Rhode Island is a perversion of federal law

Bills Introduced to Stop Presidential Abuse of National Monument Designations

The Ending Presidential Overreach on Public Lands Act would give Congress the sole power to designate national monuments, preventing presidents from declaring monuments unilaterally on their own.  "Predatory use of the Antiquities Act by previous administrations have locked up millions of acres of federal land, completely ignoring the intent of the law and the will of impacted states like Utah," Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) said.  "The broad strokes used by past Presidents to designate national monuments have caused undue harm to the people who actually live on and care for those lands," Senator John Curtis (R-Utah) added.  Track here:  S.220 | H.R.521

Op-Ed on the Would-Be 'Protectors' of Grazing Lands

"The World Wildlife Fund co-founded the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef designed in part to align corporate finance and other powerful NGOs to decarbonize the American Beef Industry.... what better way to reduce beef emissions than by removing them from millions of acres of public grazing lands? ... But do these lands need to be protected, and whom are they protecting these lands from?  Multi-generational ranching is the reason these lands are largely intact.... Much of this [myth the prairies are falling to the plow] is predicated on a narrative driven by the environmental community that undeveloped land and wildlife are disappearing. This narrative is used to justify programs that expand government land ownership and the regulation of natural resources.....  [But] Rob Gordon's (former deputy secretary of the interior) comprehensive report — Lands and Habitat in the United States: A Reality Check — challenges this narrative stating: "Contrary to the familiar, agenda- driven narrative, development or conversion of natural landscapes to agricultural and urban use in the United States is not rapidly growing, nor are all U.S. species generally becoming ever more endangered" ....  APR's grand scheme to rewild a massive area, James L. Huffman a PERC board member states: "If and when grazing lands become more available for conservation purposes, it will be important for the BLM and Forest Service to eliminate regulations and procedures intended to serve grazing management objectives" ... Donating to American Prairie Reserve is a donation in support of multi-national corporate and non-governmental environmental agendas to consolidate a vast region of lands subjecting state and local governments to a foreign and powerful influence."  Read the rest here.

TrumpWatch

It's a new day.  This is what winning looks like:

Alaska Governor cheers Trump executive order unlocking state's natural bounty of oil & gas, minerals, and timber

• One example is the Ambler Access Project, a 211-mile industrial road through the Brooks Range foothills.  Unblocking the project enables commercial mining

Trump Interior Secretary Burgum revokes Biden climate change rules that blocked drilling for energy (more here)

Trump order reducing regulation on mining holds promise of ending America's reliance on China for strategic minerals

• Greenland has one-fourth of the world's rare earth minerals

Trump executive order addresses NEPA obstructionism that stops development projects, and Supreme Court case likely to turn misused statute back into the procedural step it was intended to be.

News Round-Up

• Montana, Wyoming sue to repeal Biden Powder River Basin Coal Leasing Ban
• Biden EPA gamed Social Cost of Carbon calculations by using models that are easily manipulated with assumptions that predetermine desired outcomes
• Signing a conservation easement with a greedy land trust means you lose control over your farmland and forsake the right to make decisions about how you farm, what crops to plant, etc.  One solution: a Montana bill, scuttled by greedy land trusts, would have forbidden perpetual conservation easements and time-limited them to 40 years.
• New Jersey court rejects baseless claim oil industry causes climate change, dismisses state Attorney General's suit with prejudice
• Supreme Court case (Bowers) offers the Court a chance to reverse its disastrous, much-criticized Kelo decision upholding eminent domain for private development
• Reopening shuttered power plants makes more sense than building new ones to meet data center needs

Sen. Mike Lee: "The U.S. government should never be the largest landowner in America.  And it certainly shouldn't own 28% of America's land." 

• Thomas Sowell:  The World's Biggest Landlord Is Washington - Selling off some of the government's holdings would ease fiscal stress and help the economy.