New national monument is an idea worth considering

By Bill Schneider, NewWest.net guest blogger, 7-15-10

Back in February somebody leaked seven pages of a “vision document” conceived within the Department of the Interior and created quite a political uproar. OMG! Top brass in the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service (all Interior Department agencies) and a few green groups were actually discussing the idea of creating 14 new national monuments using the same end-run strategy employed by President Bill Clinton when--only three days before turning over the keys to the White House to George W. Bush--he used the Antiquities Act of 1906 to designate the 377,000-acre Upper Missouri Breaks National Monument in north central Montana and 12 more monuments in other states.

Now, it appears as if President Obama might do the same thing, even though Interior Secretary Ken Salazar claims it’s all “false rumors.” But in an excellent analysis (click here), Great Falls Tribune capital bureau reporter John S. Adams verifies that Interior Department higher-ups have indeed been seriously chatting up the monument idea. Salazar should have been proud to admit it.

Now, all those people who didn’t vote for President Obama, particularly western republican politicos, have their shorts jerked up tight over the idea. They consider it an abuse of presidential power and insist that any monument designation must first have a local consensus and then be passed by Congress.

First off, let’s be honest about motivations. Republicans want this congressional process because they know it won’t happen, and since the Obama administration proposed it, they have to be against it. Democrats will maintain a neutral stance, publicly, but in the end, they’ll let it happen because it’s coming from their President. Conservationists and scientists in agencies support using the Antiquities Act because they know it’s the only way it can happen.

I say, we should all keep our guns in their holsters until we consider the real ramifications a new national monument.

For starters, I’m betting this political state of affairs resembles that of 1910 when Congress went against the will of the local business community by designating Glacier National Park--and we all know how that turned out for local businesses. Now, a hundred years later, I wonder if the chamber of commerce still considers that “land grab” a bad idea.

Secondly, we might as well go right to the pivotal issue, the impact on federal land grazing allotments leased by local ranchers. Nobody proposes taking over or having any effect on private land, but ranchers fear, as they should, that the monument designation will affect their public land grazing privileges.

Hopefully, proponents won’t shy away from this issue or pretend grazing privileges won’t be affected because they should be affected! In fact, these grazing allotments within the boundaries of the new monument should be phased out or retired or purchased, as they should, incidentally, on the already designated Upper Missouri Breaks National Monument.

I realize that by saying this I’m risking giving a few local ranchers heart attacks, but stockgrowers have had their way with most of our public lands for the past century, and the time is long overdue for a few places where natural systems emerge as the management priority. Besides that, increased economic benefits from tourism and new government jobs should more than compensate the local economy for any loss from reduced public land grazing activities.

Interestingly, while up in Canada fishing this June, our guide had grown up on a farm in a tiny community adjacent to Canada’s new Grasslands National Park just over the border in Saskatchewan, contiguous to the “non-proposed” monument in Montana. We asked him how that went down, and he said lots of locals opposed the park, but then new jobs and money started flowing into the struggling rural community, and locals can already see the positive benefits. Surprise! Now, everybody is happy.

The same will happen in Montana, so local business leaders, tourism officials and politicians, think about it. This could be a rare opportunity for economic growth so hard to come by in declining rural environments. Give the monument idea some serious consideration instead of automatically opposing it because the evil federal government is lurking behind the scenes. Call your senators and representatives and ask them cool their jets and consider supporting the new monument. 

As far as the environmental impact, well, that’s a given. Creating a Grasslands National Monument south of the border to link up, physically and ecologically, with its Canadian counterpart would be the fulfillment of a pipe dream long held by scientists and conservationists--the protection of a large section of prairie that can be, as much as possible, returned to its natural state.

But how can we get it done? Nowadays, all politicians from both parties worship “local consensus.” This means all stakeholders get together and agree on a plan so their political representatives can carry it without controversy. In this case, though, such a process has little chance of success. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and predict that local ranchers and their trade groups will never agree to a new monument.

That leaves the Antiquities Act as the only realistic option. If our senators and representatives don’t like it, well, tough cookies. Many of us have lost our confidence in Congress. The system has become so politically divisive and convoluted that it’s next to impossible to do anything controversial, regardless of the positive economic and environmental benefits.

We can have an extensive public involvement process. Everybody can have his or her say, but we should suffer no illusion about a consensus emerging from this process. After all the shouting ends, Obama will have to just do it.

From a political standpoint (and it’s all about politics, correct?), it seems like the President can’t lose. Six of the 14 proposed monuments are in key swing or “purple” western states where Obama needs a couple of more points in 2012--Arizona (Northern Sonoran Desert), Colorado (Vermillion Basin), Montana (Bitter Creek and nearby grasslands, referred to as “Montana Plains"), New Mexico (Lesser Prairie Chicken Preserve and Otero Mesa), and Nevada (Heart of the Great Basin). Five are in fairly secure blue states--California (Bodie Hills, Modoc Plateau and Berrysessa-Snow Mountain), Oregon (Cascades Siskiyou), and Washington (San Juan Islands). The remaining three are in the internally red states of Idaho (Owyhee Canyons) and Utah (Cedar Mesa and San Rafael Swell) that will never turn blue regardless of what Obama does, so there’s nothing to lose.

So, it seems, the President and Democrats come out ahead. Plus, let us not forget that, to date, Obama has done pathetically little to appease the millions of environmentalists who voted for him to get some relief from the Bush administration’s endless attack on environmental laws and regulations. If Obama throws down the gauntlet and creates these 14 monuments, disenfranchised Democratic and independent voters might actually vote for him again in 2012, and most people who oppose the monuments voted against him in 2008 and will do it again whether or not he uses the powers granted the President under the Antiquities Act.