Bears Ears fate in the hands of subcommittee

SALT LAKE CITY — Controversial monument designations in Utah, Maine, Oregon and elsewhere across the country were either defended or vilified in a Tuesday congressional oversight hearing that lasted more than two hours.

Support or condemnation fell on party lines among members of Congress who spoke during the hearing of the House Natural Resources' Subcommittee on Federal Lands.

"It's the size of the designations, and size matters," said Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-California. "We have a giant problem here."

But Rep. Jimmy Panetta, a Democrat from California, spoke to the tourism and economic vitality that monuments generate as unrivaled landscapes receive ecosystem protections for the future.

"I look at these monuments as living postcards we can send to future generations," Panetta said.

Front and center of the debate were the last two presidential monument designations in Utah that impact San Juan County — the Bears Ears declared last December by President Barack Obama and the Grand Staircase-Escalante in Kane and Garfield counties — designated in 1996 by then President Bill Clinton.

Both designations generated the wrath of Utah's GOP politicians who charge they were a nod to special interest groups and specifically orchestrated to deter federal land management policies that emphasize multiple-use.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, said both designations were made without consultation, or support of elected Utah leaders or community members — and in the case of Bears Ears, those Native Americans opposed to the monument have been marginalized.

"Members of this committee have called Rebecca Benally, the Navajo woman elected to represent this area as a county commissioner a 'token' Navajo who opposes the designation," he said. "I cannot even begin to describe how disrespectful and demeaning this dismissive language is to her, and to the local people and tribes in this area."

The monument debate continues to escalate in the aftermath of President Donald Trump's executive order issued last week calling for a review of national monument designations of 100,000 acres or greater since 1996.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has vowed to visit Utah and the Bears Ears region, which is the focus of a 45-day review that will result in recommendations to Trump on whether the 1.35 million-acre monument should be left intact, reduced or overturned outright.

There remains a legal question as to the ability of a U.S. president to rescind a national monument designated by a predecessor, but proponents say the law's silence on the authority is encouraging — while opponents say such action will result in immediate litigation.

In his opening remarks at Tuesday's hearing, Rep. Tom McClintock, R-California and chairman of the subcommittee, said the executive branch has clearly usurped its authority under the Antiquities Act, which is a 1906 law with language that states it should be exercised for the smallest area possible compatible with objects to be protected.

"Indeed in the last eight years, the Obama administration used this act to exercise monument status of more than 553.4 million acres of land and water that is equivalent to the entire states of Texas, California, Montana, New Mexico and Arizona combined, with an extra 50,000 square miles to spare."

McClintock said those kind of designations run counter to authority that rests with Congress.

"Ongoing abuses of the Antiquities Act are antithetical to (Congress) goals and make a mockery of the clear intention of Congress in originally adopting this act."

But Rep. Norma Torres, D-California, questioned whether elected officials in Maine and elsewhere were truly disregarded in the monument debate and if it was a matter of a conversation they weren't willing to hear.

"Sometimes our big egos in government get hurt," she said.

Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, D-Hawaii, said monument designations have rightfully protected cherished landscapes and places of signficant historical events that resonate with the public.

"Any executive act to abolish existing monuments will be met with stiff resistance by the American people," she said.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage, and Kathleen Clarke, Utah's director of the Public Lands Policy Coordination Office, stressed that monument designations that ignore the will and wishes of local people should be an affront to citizens and their injury to local communities should be cause for alarm.

"With respect to these two monuments, Utah has been a victim more than a beneficiary of designations," Clarke said.

Supporters and detractors of Bears Ears are continuing to press their case to the Trump administration on social media, with press conferences and ad campaigns.

San Juan County commissioners met with Zinke Tuesday and on Wednesday, the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition is holding press conference at the National Press Club to detail reaction to Trump's executive order, which members describe as a "thinly veiled attack" on the designation.