It might take a fight to save park in Utah
Any effort to challenge federal designation expected to end up in court
washington» As he prepared to travel west recently, Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke got a letter from a coalition of tribes in Utah. The group had filled the seats on a commission to manage the new Bears Ears National Monument, the letter said, and Zinke was invited to discuss its future.
But the future of Bears Ears, which the tribes pushed for and President Barack Obama granted just before leaving office, is uncertain. Utah’s Republican lawmakers have launched an intense lobbying effort to persuade President Donald Trump and Zinke to rescind the designation.
Management of Western land, with its teeming wildlife and vast mineral riches, will be Zinke’s greatest challenge at Interior, and conflict over land is particularly acute in Utah. It’s second only to Nevada among the Lower 48 states with the most federally owned land — more than two-thirds — and officials there were still smarting over the 1.9 million acres set aside for the Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument by President Bill Clinton nearly two decades before Obama created Bears Ears.
The secretary hasn’t commented publicly about Bears Ears, but a statement from Interior about his position on public lands echoed the concerns of Utah Republican officials who complain that a massive amount of acreage was set aside for the monument without their consent.
Zinke, an avid hunter and fisherman, supports “the creation of monuments when there is consent and input from local elected officials, the local community, and tribes prior to their designation,” Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift said in the statement. Zinke believes monuments are beneficial, but “careful consideration is required before designating significant acreage.”
Conservationists are worried not only about Bears Ears but also about the future of other monuments. They are concerned that Obama’s recent expansion of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument on land and sea in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and his designations of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in the Atlantic Ocean and Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine could be targeted for reduction by the Trump administration.
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, who is a Republican, and members of Utah’s congressional delegation say “careful consideration” didn’t happen when Obama set aside 1.3 million acres to create Bears Ears in December.
Herbert vowed to fight the new monument. “We know how to challenge this action appropriately through the many administrative, legal and legislative avenues available to us. We will aggressively pursue these options.”
He put his state’s money where his mouth is during a tense phone call last month with leaders of the Outdoor Industry Association. The group demanded that he end his support for a state resolution urging Trump to rescind the monument or lose two annual events that the group holds in Utah. Together, the outdoor-gear trade shows bring about $50 million to Utah.
“If you’re giving me an ultimatum here on the phone, then the answer is, I guess, we’re going to have to part ways,” Herbert said, and the group decided to move its trade show. Colorado is among the states trying to lure the trade show.
“There’s going to be litigation if you rescind Bears Ears,” said Amy Roberts, the executive director of the association, whose 1,200 members include the Patagonia and North Face brands. The Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society are two of the conservation groups that oppose rescinding the monument’s designation.
The law appears to be on the their side, according to legal experts who study public lands. “The president does not have the authority to rescind based on the vast weight of legal opinion,” said Bob Keiter, a law professor at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah.
“He has the authority to create monuments but not un-designate them. It’s never been tried by a president before. Congress has rescinded a handful of public monuments. There is precedent for president and Congress shrinking national monuments. He could shrink it, but there would be a court case.”
A coalition of the Navajo, Hopi, Ute and Zuni tribes supported the Bears Ears designation, said Mihio Manus, a spokesman for the Navajo Nation Office of the President and Vice President.
“I think that the coalition of tribes that supported the Bears Ears designation did so because there is cultural and historical interest in that area,” Manus said. “It is those areas we’re trying to protect.”
Mark Wintch, vice president of the Utah Cattlemen’s Association, said a 1.3-millionacre monument is too much. “The hikers have access; the ranchers do not. It has become a very personal thing with the large overreach of the government telling ranchers what we can do out here.”