Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: National Monuments Being Considered for Closure  (Read 2782 times)

BrownBear

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 118
National Monuments Being Considered for Closure
« on: April 26, 2017, 10:44:47 pm »

Quite the list here.
Logged

Farmer

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2848
Re: National Monuments Being Considered for Closure
« Reply #1 on: April 27, 2017, 03:10:57 am »

  :(
Logged
Phil Brown

Otto Phocus

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 655
Re: National Monuments Being Considered for Closure
« Reply #2 on: April 27, 2017, 06:22:30 am »

Technically, there is no talk of closing any of these national monuments.  The EO gives control of these national monuments over to the individual state.

We would not need this if the Antiquities Act was appropriately implemented.

Congress still maintains the authority to designate these and other areas as National Parks.
Logged
I shoot with a Camera Obscura with an optical device attached that refracts and transmits light.

DeanChriss

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 592
    • http://www.dmcphoto.com
Re: National Monuments Being Considered for Closure
« Reply #3 on: April 27, 2017, 07:49:38 am »

...
The EO gives control of these national monuments over to the individual state.
...

True. And the state can then lease the land for oil drilling, mining, logging, grazing, and any other use. Oil and gas drilling and potash mining is exactly the intent in Utah, as already stated by the Utah legislature.
Logged
- Dean

DeanChriss

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 592
    • http://www.dmcphoto.com
Logged
- Dean

Otto Phocus

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 655
Re: National Monuments Being Considered for Closure
« Reply #5 on: April 27, 2017, 08:23:27 am »

True. And the state can then lease the land for oil drilling, mining, logging, grazing, and any other use. Oil and gas drilling and potash mining is exactly the intent in Utah, as already stated by the Utah legislature.

And that is no different from the federal government granting mining/drilling/harvesting permits for National Monuments. 

Actually the only difference is that now the individual states can, if the legislation allows it, actually sell the land to private citizens/corporations.

I believe the intent is to allow the state to decide what is done with land within that state, instead of the federal government telling a state what can and can not be done with land.

Not saying that I am in favour of this EO. Just pointing out that it is not all that radical of a decision and that there are advantages and disadvantages of both options.
Logged
I shoot with a Camera Obscura with an optical device attached that refracts and transmits light.

Alan Goldhammer

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4344
    • A Goldhammer Photography
Re: National Monuments Being Considered for Closure
« Reply #6 on: April 27, 2017, 08:49:59 am »

I agree with Otto Phocus on this.  It worth noting that the issue is quite complicated since the states where these lands are mostly located were acquired by the United States and statehood only followed later.  Thus, the land was always owned by the Federal government and not the states.  This is the source of some of the land battles that are going on right now in parts of Nevada and Oregon.  The US government has the right to manage the lands in the ways they see fit.  Clearly, Congress can pass laws allowing the land to go to the states but it's clear from a legal point of view that the states never had possession of this land.

The US already permits a significant amount of resource mining on federal lands and arguably is not paid market prices for the extracted resources (coal, oil, gas, etc.).  the states might be in a better position to strike better deals in this regard.
Logged

DeanChriss

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 592
    • http://www.dmcphoto.com
Re: National Monuments Being Considered for Closure
« Reply #7 on: April 27, 2017, 10:36:16 am »

I'm willing to be corrected but I believe the rules that apply to national monuments are very different than those that apply to other federal lands, like National Forests (administered by the Department of Agriculture) and other federal lands that are administered by the BLM. Those last two are always leasing land for various industrial uses. National monuments are administered by the National Park Service and I  believe that most of the original monument proclamations barred new mineral leases, mining claims, prospecting, exploration activities, and oil, gas, and geothermal leases, subject to existing rights.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2017, 10:42:05 am by DeanChriss »
Logged
- Dean

luong

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 259
    • http://www.terragalleria.com
Re: National Monuments Being Considered for Closure
« Reply #8 on: May 13, 2017, 07:25:40 pm »

The national monuments would not be "closed", they would simply lose their protection as national monuments, but they were public lands before being national monuments and would remain public lands after. However, I assume that the areas where mining and other extractive activities take place will be off limits to the public. 

Casey Schreiner has great information and ideas about making comments:

https://modernhiker.com/how-to-comment-on-trumps-national-monument-review

For Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante, both prime targets, see:

https://suwa.org/comment/
Logged
QT Luong - author of http://TreasuredLandsBook.com, winner of 6 national book awards

tim wolcott

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 688
    • http://www.galleryoftheamericanlandscape.com
Re: National Monuments Being Considered for Closure
« Reply #9 on: May 19, 2017, 06:37:05 pm »

All the laws and fees to drill and mine on public lands, forest service, BLM and national Monument lands need to updated and protect from the gross misuse of foreign companies who take our lands and use them and abuse them.  We need a real business plan for these if we our going to keep allowing these to used for mineral resources then they should pay more and have to restore them when finished.  Currently they leave the lands in a pile of crap and  PAY NO cleanup costs.   Then they go onto a new place just like the Locusts they are.  Of course American companies should have to do the same.  BY the way they can do this on any of the lands when any and all the current and past presidents were in office.  Money talks and Bullshit walks.  They are all being bribed.  Including the Governor of California
Logged

Alan Smallbone

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 788
    • APS Photography
Re: National Monuments Being Considered for Closure
« Reply #10 on: May 19, 2017, 09:42:49 pm »

I think the Antiquities act works, what does not work is allowing the states to control the oil and gas exploitation. The states are more likely to be controlled by big business, just my opinion. I am amazed that there a number of photographers who do not seem to care and want big business to control things. They probably also thing trickle down economics work. Which it never has. The rich just get richer and the poor get poorer.

Alan
Logged
Alan Smallbone
Orange County, CA

tim wolcott

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 688
    • http://www.galleryoftheamericanlandscape.com
Re: National Monuments Being Considered for Closure
« Reply #11 on: May 20, 2017, 02:24:24 am »

The Antiquities Act only works when people and the government follow the LAWS that were written.  I have seen the Clinton administration do things like bulldoze whole ghost towns  in Utah.  Even though the local community chained themselves to stop them they ordered them all to be arrested.  The Clinton admin lost in court and had to rebuild the ghost town.  Also they started removing old mining cabins from the locals forest in San Bernadino.  It happened when they replaced local Gov workers with east coast workers.  I have seen such atrocities at the Smithsonian but its all government at the Fed level.  I'sure it happens with all Presidents big business always win.. The end or bottom consumer always always pays all the bills.  When taxes are implemented the rich don't feel that pain only the working class.  Less taxes is better for the little guy because they have more pain.
Logged

Alan Klein

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 15850
    • Flicker photos
Re: National Monuments Being Considered for Closure
« Reply #12 on: May 20, 2017, 04:13:01 pm »

The Antiquities Act only works when people and the government follow the LAWS that were written.  I have seen the Clinton administration do things like bulldoze whole ghost towns  in Utah.  Even though the local community chained themselves to stop them they ordered them all to be arrested.  The Clinton admin lost in court and had to rebuild the ghost town.  Also they started removing old mining cabins from the locals forest in San Bernadino.  It happened when they replaced local Gov workers with east coast workers.  I have seen such atrocities at the Smithsonian but its all government at the Fed level.  I'sure it happens with all Presidents big business always win.. The end or bottom consumer always always pays all the bills.  When taxes are implemented the rich don't feel that pain only the working class.  Less taxes is better for the little guy because they have more pain.
If Presidents can unilaterally declare like some dictator that something is a National Monument, why can't one rip down stuff there too?  And then the next president can do just the opposite, also acting like a dictator.  National Monuments should be declared by Congress.  If there is a real need for immediate protection, then let the president do it for a specific time period, let's say one year.  Then congress has to affirm it or it goes back to the way it was.   That way there might be hearings and discussion and the people from the area will have a right to let their representatives know how they feel.  A specific "out-of-state" president might not be sensitive to the local issues involved and step on locals living there.  Then let Congress and the president vote on it.  We are a representative government.  The president should not have this unilateral power. 

ripgriffith

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 373
    • ripsart.com
Re: National Monuments Being Considered for Closure
« Reply #13 on: May 22, 2017, 03:15:12 am »

I'm willing to be corrected but I believe the rules that apply to national monuments are very different than those that apply to other federal lands, like National Forests (administered by the Department of Agriculture) and other federal lands that are administered by the BLM. Those last two are always leasing land for various industrial uses. National monuments are administered by the National Park Service and I  believe that most of the original monument proclamations barred new mineral leases, mining claims, prospecting, exploration activities, and oil, gas, and geothermal leases, subject to existing rights.
  27 of the 122 National Monuments are managed by the Bureau of Land Management, including the hotly contested Bears Ears NM and the Staircase Escalante NM, both in Utah.
 https://www.blm.gov/programs/national-conservation-lands/utah
 so, consider yourself (gently) corrected.
Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up