Washington • House Democrats on Wednesday introduced a resolution to require more transparency of the Interior Department’s review of national monuments, a move that could force a vote of the chamber.
The resolution demands action within 14 legislative days by the House Natural Resources Committee or, under House rules, the Democrats could take their challenge to the House floor.
Rep. Raúl Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat and ranking minority member of the Natural Resources Committee, and 25 Democratic colleagues are sponsoring the resolution that requires the Trump administration to provide a final version of the monument review and all underlying documents. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, is chairman of the Natural Resources Committee.
Should the resolution come before the full House, the likely outcome of a vote would be a rejection, given the partisan breakdown of the GOP-controlled Congress.
President Donald Trump in April ordered Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to examine all national monuments created since January 1996 and recommend possible changes or rescission. Zinke has released an initial review suggesting modifications to several designations, including Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments.
“The Trump administration wants to wipe out our national monuments without an explanation or plan,” Grijalva said in a statement. “The truth is that Secretary Zinke is choosing to appease his special interest friends instead of listening to the American people, and the [resolution] will prove just that.”
Democrats and the environmental community have been outraged that Zinke’s review wasn’t more transparent and his public report was vague in its recommendations.
“We need answers,” said Kristen Brengel, vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association. “National parks and monuments are symbols of our country and reflect our commitment to saving these amazing pieces of our natural and cultural heritage for future generations. To tear apart those protections is to betray that commitment, and if the administration is bent on doing so, the American people deserve to know why.”
Meanwhile Wednesday, the Sutherland Institute, which fought against the naming of the Bears Ears National Monument and backed changes to the 1906 Antiquities Act that gives a president the power to unilaterally designate monuments, held a forum to push back against critics of Zinke’s review.
“No president from either party should have the power to unilaterally dictate land management in any state,” said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. “It is far past time for the Antiquities Act to be amended so that consultation and democracy can be brought back to federal-lands management.”
Every president since Teddy Roosevelt has used the Antiquities Act to name monuments, and while presidents have trimmed or changed the boundaries later on, no monument has ever been rescinded.
Bishop said the 111-year-old law “does not apply to the realities of our day” and notes it was passed by Congress before the creation of the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management.
“The act was intended to save actual archaeological items, thus the name Antiquities Act,” Bishop said. “Today it is used for political purposes to reward special-interest groups. That’s not right. We need to reform the act and return it to its historical purposes.”
Several pieces of legislation to change the Antiquities Act have been introduced into Congress this session but no action has been taken on them.