U.S. House passes bill to curtail national monuments
Seattle Press Intelligencer
By Joel Connolly
March 26, 2014
The U.S. House of Representatives has narrowly approved Republican legislation to severely curtail presidents’ ability to designate national monuments, a power first used in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt to create the forerunner to Olympic National Park.
Rep. Dave Reichert, one of just 10 Republican House members to oppose legislation that would curtail the President’s authority to designate new National Monuments.
The 222-201 vote was bolstered by support from 219 Republican House members. Just 10 Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, D-Wash., voted no.
The bill faces a not-very-promising future in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
House Democrats were nearly unanimous in their opposition. They argued that President Obama has used his monument-designating authority, under the 1906 Antiquities Act, largely because the anti-environmental House leadership has blocked efforts to protect public lands.
“Exactly one year ago yesterday, the president designated 970 acres of land in my district the San Juan Islands National Monument. That designation came after years of grassroots work and outreach to create a consensus plan for critically important areas,” said Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash.
“It came only because Congress failed to act on that consensus,” Larsen added. “I know because I tried to get Congress to act, and it didn’t happen.”
Larsen
Rep. Rick Larsen: Local residents worked years to create a San Juan National Monument.
The legislation to create a National Conservation Area in the San Juan Islands did not even get a hearing in the House Natural Resources Committee. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., chairman of the committee, is a critic of the Antiquities Act. Hastings denounced Obama for designating a monument in his home state.
Five of Washington’s six Democratic House members opposed the legislation. Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., preoccupied with the massive Oso landslide, did not vote.
DelBene would have voted no, and said the legislation would have blocked Obama from creating a monument in the San Juans, “a special treasure that more than deserves to be protected for generations to enjoy.”
Three Republicans in the state delegation — Hastings and U.S. Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. — voted for what was labeled Ensuring Public Involvement in the Creation of National Monuments Act.
The legislation would limit a president to one national monument per state during a four-year term. Under its provision, Obama would have been forced to choose between protecting a pristine section of California coast and preserving the headquarters of United Farmworkers leader Cesar Chavez.
The bill would allow presidents to make an emergency designation of 5,000 acres or less as a national monument for a period of just three years. Congress would have to vote approval of the new monument, or the monument would cease to exist.
Patos Island, northernmost of the San Juans. It is fabled beauty spot in San Juan Islands National Monument, designated last year by President Obama. (Joshua Trujillo/Seattle P-I file)
The Antiquities Act has been used twice here in recent years. In 2000, President Clinton created a Hanford Reach National Monument, taking federal lands from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation along a 47-mile stretch of Columbia River that is home to its last great wild salmon run.
And, last year, President Obama created the San Juan Islands National Monument. The monument protects several fabled places — e.g. Patos Island, Iceberg Point on Lopez Island and Turn Point on Stuart Island — in the island archipelago.
The most famous monument-building was done by Roosevelt, who acted to protect the Grand Canyon and the Olympics just before leaving office.
“We shouldn’t play games with Washington’s protected public lands. Both Democratic and Republican presidents have used this law to preserve some of the most beautiful sites in our state and country, and this bill would needlessly complicate the process,” said Rep. Denny Heck, D-Wash.
But McMorris Rodgers, a member of the House Republican leadership, saw it differently.
“By limiting national monument declarations in Washington state to no more than one per presidential term, the land will not be subjected to unwarranted use,” she said.
McMorris Rodgers did not give any examples of how the Olympics, San Juans or Hanford Reach have been subject to “unwarranted use.”
Gene Karpinski, head of the League of Conservation Voters, described the legislation’s goal in blunt terms: “Voting for this bill amounts to voting to prevent new parks from being created.”
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