Trump’s latest Executive Order is based on a persistent lie
Revoking National Monument designations wouldn’t “return” federal lands to the American people. It would open up public lands to sale and development.
Republicans love talking about states’ rights. Gun control? Leave it to the states. Gay marriage? Leave it to the states. Marijuana laws?
Okay, they’re less than consistent.
But the GOP has made states’ rights a part of their party’s mantra, holding up states as a foil to what Republicans see — or attempt to portray — as egregious federal overreach. State governments, the argument goes, are closer to “the people” and thus more capable of acting on constituents’ behalf. In this scenario, the Federal government is a collection of faceless Washington bureaucrats with no understanding of local issues, while state governments are champions of “the people” and their interests.
When it comes to public lands, Republicans have doubled down on this narrative. Public lands like the National Parks, National Forests, and National Monuments are all referred to as “federal” lands, and there’s a sizable contingent of Republican lawmakers eager to see those lands “returned” to the states — or, as they say, to “the people.”
There are a number of problems with this argument, but the main one is that federally managed public lands already belong to the American people. These lands are managed by the federal government, but they are held in trust for the American people. Ours are the largest truly public land holdings in the world; there’s nothing else like them on Earth. On top of this, the day-to-day operations of the federal agencies in charge of managing our public lands are profoundly local; park rangers and forest rangers live and work in the communities adjacent to the public lands they help protect and maintain.
But this isn’t just a rhetorical problem. Any arguments that “returning” federal land to the states would be returning them to “the people” are disingenuous at best, outright manipulative at worst.
These lands, for the most part, never belonged to (or have been protected from) individual states for one key reason:
States do not have a mandate to manage state-owned lands for public use. In fact, they have a distinct and often contradictory mandate — to manage them as a revenue source. States are free to auction off state-owned trust lands at any time, and most of them routinely do so by holding annual auctions. Nevada has already sold off 99% of its state trust lands, with only 3,000 acres left. On state-owned lands where public access — like camping, hiking, hunting, or fishing — comes in conflict with a state’s ability to maximize revenue, access can be severely restricted or even eliminated. Colorado has a particularly bad track record, with eighty two percent of their state lands closed to public access. In states like Utah, legislatures are eager to seize federally managed public lands — not in order to ensure “the people” have greater control and input, but because these lands boast substantial reserves of natural resources like potash, coal, or gas.
Trump either doesn’t realize any of this, or doesn’t care (or both) — as he was issuing the Executive Order on Wednesday morning, he mentioned more than once how he’d heard about the beauty of Bears Ears National Monument (“so beautiful”). But behind him stood Utah Governor Gary Herbert, who has long been vocal in objecting to Bears Ears’ National Monument designation, and continues to push for its reversal.
Earlier this year, Herbert even refused to reconsider his position when Outdoor Retailer, the major outdoor sports show that generates $45 million in revenue each year for Salt Lake City, threatened to move out of state if Herbert continued lobbying Trump to pass the Executive Order he just signed. In Utah, the executive order implicates not only Bears Ears, but also the breathtaking Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
Not surprisingly, these two monuments sit atop considerable reserves of uranium and coal, respectively.
The President has no clear authority to revoke national monument designations — the Antiquities Act grants the President power to designate National Monuments, but after they’ve been established they fall entirely within Congressional jurisdiction. But with the GOP in control of Congress and a number of public land transfer bills already sitting in the House, public land advocates have reason to be on guard.
