If you voted for Trump with on the basis of public access.....you were dead WRONG!!

Here is the official statement from the Department of Interior: https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/secretary-zinke-recommends-keeping-federal-lands-federal-ownership-adding-three-new

Not really a lot of mixing words here, they specifically include Myth/Truth segment to discuss some of the hyperbolic false reporting and over the top reactions.

Came across this press release right after reading your press release.


https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/s...lion-timber-dollars-rural-oregon-doubles-down

Good work by Zinke in this case. I'm in support of this.
 
But I'm buying less and less into the slippery slope idea that if it loses monument status it's only a matter of time before it's either completely tore up for oil rigs or sold to private developers

As this thing has kinda gone allover the place, while kinda staying on the same topic, this sentence caught my attention.
Interesting how a large contingency on here would doggedly fight anything viewed as a slippery slope when it comes to a 2'nd amendment issue. Yet when it come to public land issues, the same will willingly dismiss any type of raising an alarm as chicken little type stuff.
2'nd amendment stuff has one of the most - if not currently most - powerful lobbies in America.
Public Lands issues don't enjoy this luxury.
I'll leave any remaining contributions to this conversation to the more masochistic types..........

100% agree that for a lot of people the 2nd amendment is a wall not a slope. I'm not one of them. Everything is a slippery slope, everything, from parenting to grocery shopping, it all comes down to lines in the sand, decisions you can support those you can't. I'll wait to draw my line in the sand for this topic somewhere probably not too far down the road, but I understand why others have draw it where they did.
 
My point is that there is not a wild place on this earth that was ever made better by increased publicity, museums, corporate advocacy, tens of thousands of trust fund millennials using sacred cultural artifacts for photo ops after a day of leaving their climbing gear in the rocks, or tour busses full of Chinese.

Can you imagine if someone, representing a major corporation like the north face came and said they were going to save the upper Missouri River breaks by building something like this in Geraldine?
These are some of the most rural places in this country and that’s what makes them so great.

Being up in arms and ruining the place with commercial development like an education center and everything that goes with it (parking lot, restrooms, plumbing, power lines, paved roads, a coffee shop, etc etc) have nothing to do with one another.

I agree that the ultimate responsibility lies with those who started the review, but the reaction from some couldn’t hardly be more self defeating.

Durfee Hills in Montana are a good but smaller example. The Wilks threw the first punch and those who cared about it( myself included) spoke up and the Billings Gazette ran with it, worded some headlines poorly and flaunted the size of the elk herd. We kept it, but it will never be the same.

Reading your comments reminded me of a passage from one of my fav books “All conservation of wildness is self-defeating, for to cherish we must see and fondle, and when enough have seen and fondled, there is no wilderness left to cherish.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There
 
Reading your comments reminded me of a passage from one of my fav books “All conservation of wildness is self-defeating, for to cherish we must see and fondle, and when enough have seen and fondled, there is no wilderness left to cherish.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

Guilty of wanting to fondle.:D
 
I can understand some may FEEL these monuments are a display of the AA being abused. However, feeling that way does not in any way make it factual. Only interpretations by the courts will make something definitive. To state otherwise as fact is simply being close minded.

Based on an informal internet poll I've taken over the last couple days, I feel many people do not actually have a working knowledge of the Antiquities Act, even though they think they do, and haven't actually read or researched its goals or historical uses/misuses. I'll be the first to admit that I didn't know much about the act before the Zinke reviews first hit the news, but then I went and did some learning. There are right and wrong ways to go about preserving land, in these instances the wrong way was used...
 
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... many people do not actually have a working knowledge of the Antiquities Act, even though they try to appear like they do, and haven't actually read or researched its goals or historical uses/misuses.
Similar to the Cliven Bundy interpretation of his pocket copy of the US Constitution.
 
Based on an informal internet poll I've taken over the last couple days, I feel many people do not actually have a working knowledge of the Antiquities Act, even though they think they do, and haven't actually read or researched its goals or historical uses/misuses.

There are right and wrong ways to go about preserving land, in these instances, the wrong way was used...

Again, your opinion it is the wrong way is merely that, an opinion. The only opinion that is binding and definitive is that of the US Court system. If the GSENM and Bear's Ear proclamations were outside the scope of the Antiquities Act, it would have been easily challenged in court and the proclamations would have been declared unconstitutional. They were not, therefore any assertions the AA was not applicable are speculative at best.

It will be interesting to see how any lawsuits shake out of this. While a President has the authority to modify a monument, I believe (stating this as opinion) the modifications were significant enough to warrant a challenge.
 
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If the GSENM and Bear's Ear proclamations were outside the scope of the Antiquities Act, it would have been easily challenged in court and the proclamations would have been declared unconstitutional.

Parts of the the GSENM and Bears Ears do fall within the AA, it's the areas not justified by it that have been acted on. Read it, even on Wikipedia if you have to...
 
We all seem to think we are good readers and have a good understanding of the semantics of the English language, until we are enlightened by an attorney or judge who describes the legal definitions and seemingly contradictory ramifications of terms, phrases, and statements. My Grandad always told me to have an open mind and much humility. If only I had listened.
 
Parts of the the GSENM and Bears Ears do fall within the AA, it's the areas not justified by it that have been acted on. Read it, even on Wikipedia if you have to...

Sigh...

I can understand how you and others may feel parts of these are NOT justified to have been acted on by the AA. If a group of Supreme Court Justices likely won't agree unanimously on this issue, I don't expect us to either. But please, in the essence of honesty, at least acknowledge you are basing things on opinion and not fact.
 
Great article/information from BHA:

Let's tackle some of the monument myths out there.
1) You *can* hunt and/or fish all national monuments placed under review by the DOI in 2017.
2) The land was federal prior to designation & remains federal after.
3) Monument designation *protects wildlife habitat & preserves access for future generations.*
Learn more about hunting the six national monuments up for review and the wildlife at risk here:


https://www.backcountryhunters.org/hunting_national_monuments
 
Sigh...

I can understand how you and others may feel parts of these are NOT justified to have been acted on by the AA. If a group of Supreme Court Justices likely won't agree unanimously on this issue, I don't expect us to either. But please, in the essence of honesty, at least acknowledge you are basing things on opinion and not fact.

Ugh, don't resort to being patronizing...
 
Ugh, don't resort to being patronizing...

I'm not trying to be patronizing, and I apologize if you think I am.

The point I'm trying to make is I keep reading statements to the effect of these monuments being examples of overstepping the Antiquities Act. They may be, or they may not. However, for any of us (myself included) to state definitively as fact it is or isn't overstepping the AA is presumptive and speculative at best.

Heck, even the question as to whether the monuments NEED to be that large is speculative. 100 different people will likely give 100 different answers, and in the end, it will be a majority OPINION from the Judicial Branch that will definitively lay out what the scope and magnitude of the monument should be in order to accomplish the goals stated in the Presidential Proclamation.\

I get tired of people wanting to simply argue you are wrong and I am right (and it ultimately degrades into insults based on perceived political affiliation), rather than intelligently discussing the merits of each argument, but that's just me.
 
Coming from you that’s the response I’d expect, you never dissapoint. I’ll do like your hero and double down, a damn good, decent man and awesome patriot!
 
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