Trump’s threat to outdoors
Both presidential power and wilderness preservation are at stake as the Trump team decides how far to go in trimming outdoors protections that past presidents and millions of Americans support. The final choices, made only partly clear by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, carry troubling impacts.
What’s coming is a likely rollback on millions of acres, mostly in the West, which are safeguarded from logging, drilling and mining by presidential decree. Of the 27 so-called presidential monuments under review, five are in California, making this state ground zero in Trump’s bid to eviscerate the rules.
Zinke is the point man in this strategy. He’s already signaled a wish to cut back the boundaries of the Bears Ear monument in southern Utah, a red rock landscape dotted with tribal historical sites. Trimming the map could allow in mining and other activities that threaten both natural and cultural history.
But Zinke, who began a review of the targeted monuments in April, isn’t spelling out what else he’ll ax, saying that a “handful” of others on the list may be changed. But the details are missing for now, with his suggestions kept under wraps for the White House to consider.
He indicated he doesn’t favor eliminating any of the monuments. That may be a relief to those fearing the worst, but an outrage to many of the millions of people who filed public comments or signed petitions asking Zinke to leave the protected lands alone.
In California, the Trump hit list includes swaths of wild backcountry up and down the state. One spot is the Berryessa Snow Mountain monument northeast of Santa Rosa. Others are near Los Angeles, in the Central Coast mountains and in the Mojave Desert, where an underground aquifer may be drained by a private firm. Another monument spills across the Oregon border.
There’s a clear political agenda at work. While the monuments under review were designated by the last three presidents, the majority were made by Barack Obama, many in his final months in office. Undoing the Obama record, from health care to voting rights, is a Trump fixation.
But undoing these protections will bring on legal challenges. The land designations were made under the Antiquities Act of 1906, a law that gives presidents the power to preserve this country’s natural heritage. While some monuments have been scaled back, those changes were never tested in court. That legal haze is sure to be grounds for a challenge to the White House.
The White House is about to find out how the public feels, not just the wishes of the timber, mining and oil industries. Protecting wild places against intrusive human activities was the reason for the Antiquities Act, and it should remain a timely and necessary tool. Far from locking up these open spaces, the monuments have generated active use through tourism, recreation and education. Leave them alone, Mr. President. Your predecessors knew better.