Trump will visit Utah to change Bears Ears and Grand Staircase national monuments

[rockgremlin]

I know nothing of this topic but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume it was because there wasn't any oil in those lands worth extracting.

Just like Bears Ears.

Might be some truth to this, for sure.

Hey Scott -- off the top of your head, do you happen to recall what year Rockefeller made this donation?

[accadacca]

Billionaire Owner of Outdoor Apparel Brand Patagonia Plans To Sue Trump

“The President Stole Your Land. In an illegal move, the president just reduced the size of Bear Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. This is the largest elimination of protected land in American history.” So reads the now black frontpage of outdoor gear and apparel company Patagonia.

It’s a strong message delivered by a passionate billionaire who built his company and made his fortune his own way, largely by consistently touting a message of environmental conservation.

Patagonia’s owner, Yvon Chouinard, has made clear his opposition to President Trump’s decision to sharply reduce the sizes of two federally protected monuments in Utah by some two million acres.

In addition to changing his company’s homepage, Chouinard told CNN on Tuesday morning that he plans to take the White House to court. ”I’m going to sue him,” Chouinard said. “It seems the only thing this administration understands is lawsuits.”

Patagonia’s general counsel, Hilary Dessouky, provided the following statement to Forbes, citing plans to file a lawsuit on Wednesday, December 6:

The Administration’s unlawful actions betray our shared responsibility to protect iconic places for future generations and represent the largest elimination of protected land in American history. We worked to establish Bears Ears National Monument and will now fight to protect it. On Wednesday, we will be filing a lawsuit challenging the president’s revocation of Bears Ears National Monument.

According to Corley Kenna, spokeswoman for Patagonia, they have been expecting an order of this nature. “We’ve known since the beginning of the year that something like this might happen,” she said. “So we’ve been preparing.”

At least one lawsuit has already been filed against President Trump for the proclamations. A consortium of 10 environmental organizations including The Wilderness Society, Sierra Club and Grand Canyon Trust jointly filed a suit on December 4 — the same day the orders were announced — alleging the proclamations as “unlawful” and that the President “exceeds his authority under the Antiquities Act” by reducing the federal lands in Utah.

The administration’s decision to withdraw support of those Utah lands would dramatically reduce the sizes of Bears Ears National Monument by 85% and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by about 46%. These two sites, both of which were designated as monuments under Democratic presidents, are being abandoned due to what the Trump administration calls “a lack of significance.”

“Some of the objects … are not unique to the monument, and some of the particular examples of these objects within the monument are not significant scientific or historic interest,” reads the administration’s order, known as the “Presidential Proclamation Modifying the Bears Ears National Monument.” A similarly-titled “Presidential Proclamation” was also released for Grand Staircase-Escalante.

President Trump further explained his decision during remarks at the Utah State Capitol on December 4, citing “harmful and unnecessary restrictions on hunting, ranching and responsible economic development” as the reasons for this proclamation.

Bear Ears became a monument under the Obama administration during the last few days of his presidency in December 2016, while Grand Staircase-Escalante received the same status in September 1996 when Clinton was president.

Other outdoor retailers including REI and North Face also adjusted their homepages to show their opposition to the administration’s proclamation. North Face’s homepage includes a link to a Kickstarter page to raise $100,000 for the Bear Ears Education Center. At the time of publication, the Kickstarter page had already crossed the $100,000 line.

Chouinard appeared on Forbes’ list of the World’s Billionaires for the first time in March 2017 with a personal net worth of $1 billion. “We strongly oppose being included on this list,” a spokeswoman of Patagonia told Forbes at the time.

He founded Patagonia as a climbing equipment startup with the main goal of financing his mountain adventures. The company, which almost went bankrupt in the 1970s, is known for adopting sustainable practices including using recycled plastic bottles as fabric. The company has also been fighting to protect public lands for years and says it helped establish several monuments, including Bears Ears. In 2015, the company’s sales reached $750 million.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of the story incorrectly stated that Yvon Chouinard appeared on Forbes‘ list of the World’s Billionaires for the first time last year. He was a newcomer to the 2017 World’s Billionaires list which was published in March 2017.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelau...von-chouinard/

[Sombeech]

Billionaire Owner of Outdoor Apparel Brand Patagonia Plans To Sue Trump

“The President Stole Your Land

Yeah I've wanted to just raise my hand and offer a correction, rather than "Stole", it should be "Gave Back". It's an easy mistake to make.

[Sombeech]

Billionaire Owner of Outdoor Apparel Brand Patagonia Plans To Sue Trump

I sure hope he spends a ton of money. In fact it would be hilarious to watch somebody so obsessed in opposition to keep spending their fortune in vain, fighting something backed by the law, in angry frustration so much they drop their net worth from Billions to Millions.

I hope this happens. So does Trump. What a mismatch.

[Iceaxe]

Lawyers getting rich from controversy... who would have guessed.

One huge difference between Chouinard and Trump fighting this out in court is Trump is playing with unlimited house money.

On a side note how is that Gorsuch pick for SCOTUS looking now?

[accadacca]

It's simply a PR stunt for Chouinard and Patigonia

[Brian in SLC]

It's simply a PR stunt for Chouinard and Patigonia

Hardly a stunt.

[stefan]

The Aneth oil fields just south of BENM are very rich. But they are far away from the proposed monument, and much of it is on the Navajo Nation lands.

What I find interesting is that if people were so concerned about not drilling oil on Bears Ears, why did nobody speak up about it before? Why is it that all of a sudden when BENM becomes such a hot button politicized topic THEN people want to cry foul? And most of the time the folks who scream the loudest are one's that are the least informed.

bears ears/BENM is a relatively new catchall for lands in this region that have long been part of ARRWA. one of the primary motives of ARRWA is to protect regions from energy development, and in the region spanning from the moab vicinity to needles there has long been a concern regarding energy development.

[stefan]

That the other 18 times were never challenged in court doesn't favor environmentalist as US laws often supports precedents.

That the monuments being discussed are massive in size also doesn't bode well for the Antiquities Act as the act itself limits the monument "to the smallest area compatible".

Environmentalist need to be careful with this case as it could just as easily end with the death of the Antiquities Act as we know it. No matter which side of the argument you fall on you have to agree the Antiquities Act is a massive amount of power for one person to wield without any procedural requirements and without any checks and balances.

after clinton's declaration of GSENM, the US Congress adjusted its boundaries and the current monument's boundaries were ratified by congress at that time. it doesn't appear the president is granted powers under the antiquities act to adjust congressionally set boundaries. so we will have to see where this goes.

[Sombeech]

Too many people are clinging on to this fear that these unique land formations are going to be destroyed soon. Literally. They post pictures of some slots from the area, or the Wahweap Hoodoos and say they are afraid of what will happen to them now.

Prime for trolling, I'd say.

I'm going to post some pictures of my kids saying I fear for their generation, not able to visit these lands because they will be destroyed, and their lungs will be filled with the black coal dust.

Does anybody have any pictures of minorities, or children, (or minority children for the win!) with tape over their mouths that I can use in protest? I'd use photos with them wearing dust masks, but the masks hide the tape they've got over their mouth so you don't even know.

And I'll crop in a bulldozer pushing against one of the Hoodoos. Holy shit Trump is going to back off after seeing this.

[stefan]

@stefan -- Regardless of San Juan County's energy plan, there is very little evidence to prove that exploitable, marketable oil resources exist within the BENM boundaries. The value of possible resources that may result from additional prospecting and exploration is unknown and speculative at best.

Exploratory gas fields mean just that -- exploratory. Meaning that nobody is currently drilling it, neither is anybody planning to drill it in the near future. There has been some interest in the past, but most companies know there isn't enough in the ground there to warrant a full on drilling program. If the BENM was such a hotbed for oil and mineral development, then mining companies would already be in there mining a long time ago.

thanks, i appreciate your comments, rock. my interest is in the long term so we can watch for next 1-40 years. also full-on drilling versus exploration either way impacts the land, ymmv.

here are the current leases up for sale in the march 2018 blm oil and gas lease sale:

lease list
https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-...ParcelList.pdf

here is the blm's map of the leases in hatch point (014-019) in the immediate vicinity of the northeastern border of BENM and obvious other areas. these leases are largely in areas in ARRWA (see second map below). parcel 014 is right at the border of BENM and parcel 016 is ~1mi from the hatch point campground. i've uploaded as a jpeg but the pdf can be accessed at ( https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-...7486/Map_4.pdf )




below is a map that shows the parcels 014-019 in hatch point in the map above relative to the borders of BENM, lands contained in ARRWA, and proximity to well known features in the vicinity. parcel 014 is right up against the boundary and most of the parcels are in ARRWA lands (see also parcels 010, 012, & 023).

[Iceaxe]

after clinton's declaration of GSENM, the US Congress adjusted its boundaries and the current monument's boundaries were ratified by congress at that time. it doesn't appear the president is granted powers under the antiquities act to adjust congressionally set boundaries. so we will have to see where this goes.

Congress tossed something very interesting into the adjustment of the GSENM boundary

"Provides that nothing in this Act shall be construed as constituting congressional approval, explicit or implicit, of the establishment of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Expresses the intent of the Congress that the Monument be abolished if any court finds that the President exceeded the President's authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 in establishing the national monument."

More here.... https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bil...hr3909/summary

I also know some members of congress are currently working to have Trumps new Bears Ears adjustment approved by congress, which would actually remove this item from lawsuits as I believe everyone agrees that Congress has the power to adjust boundaries, create and eliminate Monuments and National Parks.

[middlefork]

Yeah I've wanted to just raise my hand and offer a correction, rather than "Stole", it should be "Gave Back". It's an easy mistake to make.

As I understand it the Federal Government already owned the land (with small exceptions) so how exactly did they steal it and then give it back to themselves?

So far the only thing that has happened is drawing and re-drawing lines on a piece of paper and typing up a couple of proclamations. For this the lawyers will get rich, the land will get plundered by all those who have to see what the hullabaloo is all about.

Oh yea now we want another national park. That makes a lot of sense. Can't afford the ones we have now.

It's all a little magic show. Don't watch what the other hand is doing.

[DirkHammergate]

I sure hope he spends a ton of money. In fact it would be hilarious to watch somebody so obsessed in opposition to keep spending their fortune in vain, fighting something backed by the law, in angry frustration so much they drop their net worth from Billions to Millions.

I hope this happens. So does Trump. What a mismatch.

I once thought this was a forum to celebrate the outdoor, open land.... Now everyone is rock hard to #fakenews everything.

Echo Chamber, Echo Chamber, Echo Chamber. It's an Echo Chamber in here.

You should rename the site "Trumpley" and let others handle the Trip Reports.

I will be remiss if I didn't quote America's "Finest"

God Bless the United Shessts...

[Udink]

either way impacts the land, ymmv.

Did you just iceaxe (the verb, not the noun)?

[Brian in SLC]

As I understand it the Federal Government already owned the land (with small exceptions) so how exactly did they steal it and then give it back to themselves?

So far the only thing that has happened is drawing and re-drawing lines on a piece of paper and typing up a couple of proclamations. For this the lawyers will get rich, the land will get plundered by all those who have to see what the hullabaloo is all about.

The removal of the protective status afforded by monument status was akin to stealing. Not really a stretch.

"The largest elimination of protected land in American history."

If you read each executive order, and make even a feeble attempt to understand the differences and issues, you might gain a small understanding.

Or not.

And...concur about the lawyers. The legal knives are gettin' sharpened.

It is weird, though. Even folks opposed to the monument have stated that there's not much in the way of mining or oil/gas. Coal in the GSENM for sure. And, some oil/gas possibility around (north) of Indian Creek...I seem to have noted.

So...was it really done for spite and political favor? Seems silly if that's the case.

The locals are xenophobic methinks and many won't embrace the industry of tourism. They got nothing else. Grazing cattle? Eeek. That just can't be profitable. Who'd eat beef raised in that country? And the carrot of high paying extraction jobs just isn't real.

Big difference between the Escalante area pre and 20 years post monument. Quality of life just seems and looks better. What else they got besides tourism? Blaming the greenies on the sawmill closing (log didn't even come from the "monument".)? Nutty.

4.6 million in Zion this year. Gotta spread that money around...ha ha.

[Iceaxe]

This is comical... The environmentalist feel the land was 'stolen' from them when Trump signed his executive orders.

But....

How is it they fail to understand the other half feel the land was 'stolen' from them when Obama and Clinton signed their EO?

Who stole the land just depends on which side of the door you're on.

Was the monument created out of spite or political favor?

Was the monument altered out of spite or political favor?

Again.... same deal, just a different door.

[twotimer]

Echo Chamber, Echo Chamber, Echo Chamber. It's an Echo Chamber in here.

You should rename the site "Trumpley" and let others handle the Trip Reports.

There used to be a lot more liberals around here, but they're generally thinned skinned and got tired of getting their asses kicked...so they left.

[Sombeech]

I once thought this was a forum to celebrate the outdoor.

Yes, because everybody who wants Utah to have better control of it's Federal Lands, hates the outdoors, right?

Err, no, racist! Wait now I'm losing track.

This OUTDOOR COMMUNITY is definitely a strange place to discuss Escalante and Bears Ears, I agree

[Sombeech]

I'll give 100 internet points to whomever can answer this question;

Who did Trump steal the land from?