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The Nation's Pulse
The West and the 10th
Fending off presidential land grabs.
In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt got the Antiquities Act (AA) passed in Congress, legislation designed to protect archeological sites, and giving presidents executive power for preservation purposes. But the ever-shrewd TR knew that the new law would be useful to do more than just preserve ancient Indian settlement sites or shards of pottery. For good or ill, the only Republican president who is admired by modern Greens used it to close off vast tracts of the American West to economic development or “exploitation.” Roosevelt preserved some choice pieces of real estate with the AA, such as initially naming as a national monument the future Grand Canyon National Park.
On his way out of office in 1929, Calvin Coolidge signed legislation creating a smaller version (96,000 acres) of the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming than we know today. In 1943 Franklin Roosevelt used Cousin Teddy’s AA to create the adjacent 221,000-acre Jackson Hole National Monument in Wyoming, but failed due to legalities to include 35,000 acres that the Rockefeller family tried to donate to the federal government with the idea that it would be preserved. This designation was controversial in Wyoming, and Republican Congressman Frank Barrett got a bill through both houses of Congress that would have abolished the new national monument. FDR pocket vetoed it. There was a media-attracting demonstration of sorts when local ranchers led by sometime cowboy actor Wallace Beery drove 500 cattle across the new national monument. The Rockefeller lands were finally transferred to the federal government in 1949 after the Rockefellers threatened to sell them at fair market value if the government didn’t accept them, and in 1950 Harry Truman signed a bill merging the original national park with the national monument and the Rockefeller donation, thus creating the modern Grand Teton National Park that we know today. Wyoming had the last laugh. One item in the bill forbade future presidents from using executive power to establish national monuments in Wyoming without Congressional approval. No new national monument has been designated in Wyoming since that 1950 legislation.
In 1980, Jimmy Carter in another last minute deal before leaving office, and after wrangling with Congress for most of his term, signed into law the Alaska National Interest Land Act (ANILCA), which set aside a staggering 100+ million acres, creating or revising 15 national parks plus additional wilderness areas. He originally invoked the AA in 1978 to put 56 million acres under national monument designation by executive fiat. Forty million acres of the original 100+ million were initially left alone, but later were included in the legislation. After the national monument designation there were demonstrations across Alaska, and Carter was burned in effigy in Fairbanks. In sheer acreage, this legislation broke records. But the tradeoff in the bill was that — similar to Wyoming’s exemption — any future designations in Alaska larger than 5,000 acres would also require Congressional approval.
In 1996, Bill Clinton famously blindsided Utah’s then-governor Mike Leavitt and the state’s congressional delegation by issuing an executive order creating the 1.7 million acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. It was his reelection year, and Clinton did it to enhance his green credentials with environmentalists. There had been rumors of the upcoming designation a couple of weeks before, but Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt had assured Utah public officials that they were false. Babbitt served the Clinton Administration in his post for its entire eight year tenure, unusual for an Interior Secretary. He saw through 15 such designations, mostly in the West.
Lately, current Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has outlined 14 possible new western sites that could eventually be considered for national monument status, including two in Utah (San Rafael Swell and Cedar Mesa). In Washington for the recent National Governors Association meeting, Utah Governor Gary Herbert met with Salazar, and told the Salt Lake Tribune that the Interior Secretary “assured me that there is nothing being fast-tracked….no midnight surprise of ‘hey, we just created a new monument,’” But their previous experience with Clinton-Babbitt has left Beehive State GOP pols — and that’s most of them — skeptical.
According to Salt Lake City’s Deseret News, Senator Bob Bennett has lately introduced a bill designed to exempt Utah “from a president’s power to create or expand national monuments there.” Bennett’s co-sponsor is his fellow Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, who told the paper: “To hear that this administration may follow in President Clinton’s footsteps is one more major disappointment from a president who was supposed to bring about change, but instead seems intent on going down that same old path.” Bennett: “The Obama Administration continues to put the needs of environmentalists, who want to keep the public away from public lands, above the needs and desires of Utahans.” Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, will introduce similar legislation on the House side. But given the current makeup of the U.S. Congress, this legislation — with its protest aspects — will likely go nowhere.
All this begs the question as to the constitutionality of legislation such as the Antiquities Act. How can a president by executive fiat create national monuments in some states, but in others — such as Wyoming, Alaska, and maybe in the future, Utah — has powers limited by Congressional legislation? Are any of the legal nuances involved here in violation of the 10th Amendment?
I don’t know, I’m not a constitutional scholar. Chief Justice Roberts?
About the Author
Bill Croke, formerly of Cody, Wyoming, is a writer in Salmon, Idaho.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (85) | Leave a comment
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Kitty| 3.3.10 @ 6:46AM
The Constitution? You mean what Obama characterized as that "charter of negative liberties"? The same Constitution he's shredding to suit his needs?
...
Stephanie| 3.3.10 @ 9:02AM
that be the one, Kitty! That "living, breathing document" that dusty ole' piece of paper.
I plan to buy a hundred or so copies of the constitution from The Heritage Foundation where you can get them for about 25 cents apiece and hand them out at Walmart on a payday weekend. I wonder if managment will throw me out. But what the hell. It's worth a shot if I can convice just ONE uninformed citizen to read it, understand it and fight with me and other patriots to keep this beautiful and important document at the center of what guides our country.
Wish me luck!
Kitty| 3.3.10 @ 11:40AM
Wow, that's not a bad idea! I wish you luck. Btw, I keep a copy in my purse.
...
Franklin| 3.3.10 @ 1:27PM
Good for you! I did something similar just last month. Pretty fun.
Got the idea from my brother. He gets in discussions about the constitutuion, gets one of his many pocket constitutuion/declaration of independence booklets out, hightlights what part of the constitution they discussed and gives it to them. They can never repeat whatever anti-constitutional blather talking point again!
victor| 3.4.10 @ 1:00AM
For a free copy:
http://www.askheritage.org/Premium.aspx
I have several that I have collected over the years from other places, but Heritage is a very good resource.
Perfect for those people who get the Declaration and the Preamble confused.
ravenbran| 3.26.10 @ 1:42PM
The Constitution? You mean the document that George W. Bush said was "just a piece of paper"?
Ret. Marine| 3.3.10 @ 7:26AM
Follow the money folks. If I am not mistaken, any gubmint official who knownly accepts money, favors, etc. to inhance their political career is BREAKING FEDERAL LAWS.
Lockandload | 3.3.10 @ 7:44AM
Another 13 million acres? When is enough, enough? The government already owns or controls up to 40 percent of the United States! Another grab . It owns two thirds of the 13 western states- not counting the individual States. No legislation needed.
http://bunkerville.wordpress.c.....monuments/
Mark M| 3.3.10 @ 8:54PM
Why do you call it a grab. It's already federal property and will continue to be federal property. That's not really a grab, now is it?
victor| 3.3.10 @ 10:36PM
It's a land grab when the natural resources under that ground are put off limits to anyone for any reason.
We have the largest shale oil reserves in the Rockies in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. TWO TRILLION barrels worth, enough for 300 years.
Drilling that oil would not only choke the arabs, but jump start our economy. The Bakken Oil fields in the Dakotas are producing oil as we speak. We have natural gas and other resources, but your president wants to keep it all in mothballs for no one to use.
That's really a land grab, now isn't it?
And here is a related story:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes......chers-say/
Mark M| 3.4.10 @ 1:42AM
Sure, we've spent billions of dollars encouraging technology to unlock shale oil. This has been going on for decades. Would you care to tell us how much actual, usable oil we've extracted?
It's not a matter of drilling. In spite of a lot of work and money, Shell's 'in situ' mining is about as close as we've come to a practical way to extract shale oil and it's really not even close.
So you can spin your story about how making parks and preserving special places is keeping us under the thumbs of Arab nations, but it's just not true. This is about a bunch of petulant local politicians who are acting like drama queens . They are happy to take federal money, but then put on a dog and pony show any time the federal government actively manages the land.
The BLM does lease land for testing shale oil extraction, but so far nothing works in an economically viable way. When it does, get back to me and maybe I'll suggest tearing down Delicate Arch and putting up a derrick.
Allan| 3.4.10 @ 2:54PM
"Fracking" natural gas from shale is an entirely different process than extracting oil from shale (for gas the separation occurs underground during the drilling process - for oil you have to literally extract the shale and cook the oil out of it).
The natural gas process is fully operational now and setting new production and reserve records across the country.
Vicky R| 3.8.10 @ 10:54AM
Mark - 2.5 million acres are being proposed to be added to the Missouri River Monument in MT - 2 ranches are included in this proposal. These ranches are PRIVATE owned - not owned by the government. It is a grab and should be illegal.
Melvin| 3.3.10 @ 7:45AM
Hell, we can't even fund the maintenance on the National Parks we already have and the jug eared fat-head designated more.
Oh sure we hear about the greenies wanting to designate the whole country as a National Park so they can run around naked and commune with nature.
Well, let the little peckerwoods nature this. Underneath all this new found government land is oil, shale oil, and coal by designated this land a National whatever a person could get cited and arrested for so much as removing a pine-cone off
this land.
This increased our reliance on foreign oil, and a person probably wouldn't have to look very far to see that Persian Gulf money flowing to special interests to make sure this source of domestic oil was shut off.
Jesus... I'm so friggin fried right now that our benevolent jackasses in Washington D.C. are doing this to us.
These government bastards are slowly choking us to death and there isn't a damn thing that we can do about it. Other than being compared to Timothy McVeigh from a new report put out by the government.
Here is a message to Washington D.C. "Go ahead and push us, because your only only be able to push so far and then we ain't going to being singing Kumbaya and wanting to hold hands."
Gregory L. Jackson, PhD| 3.3.10 @ 8:29AM
I wish the author--and most journalists--would learn the meaning of "begging the question," a logical fallacy. I am sure he meant "raises the question" but that is not what he said. This error has the been raspberry seed in my wisdom tooth for years (quoting The Music Man).
Tim Van Eck| 3.3.10 @ 1:15PM
Thank you. This misuse is becoming more widespread.
Specifically, 'begging the question' is the fallacy of assuming in the premises the very proposition to be proved, or a tautology.
danny| 3.3.10 @ 8:34AM
melvin, i fear you're right. question is, how many are with us?
pugsley| 3.3.10 @ 1:18PM
Danny-you wont really know until the rope comes out or the shooting starts, then many will wait to see how the first few battles go.
chris pedersen| 3.3.10 @ 11:39PM
Hey Danny.
MILLIONS
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 3.3.10 @ 9:07AM
Utah is fighting back in another fashion, using the power granted by the Supreme Court by rule of eminent domain. Education time:
http://www.kesq.com/Global/sto.....191_11_5_1
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The Utah House has approved a bill that would allow the state to take federally owned land through the use of eminent domain.
Lawmakers approved the legislation 57-13 on Thursday. Republican Rep. Chris Herrod, the bill's sponsor, says the federal government violated its contract with Utah when it gained statehood by not selling the lands.
Many people in Utah are still angry about then-President Bill Clinton's designation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996.
Herrod hopes to use eminent domain to take lands at the monument that have large coal reserves. Herrod says development of the reserves could help fund the state's schools.
Opponents say the bill would result in a costly legal battle with little chance of success.
Tenn Slim| 3.3.10 @ 9:31AM
All
One of the 5 pillars of Socialism per Pete Marin. Now, how does this pertain.
1. IF not for this Media, one would probably have never even heard of these land grabbing attempts.
Nuff said. Read and Heed
News Media: This last pillar would prove to be one of the most important. With the help of academia and entertainment, however, it was possible to invade the newsroom without much difficulty. Vietnam, once again, provided a ready means to achieve control of what was once considered an inviolable institution and move it inexorably to the Left. One can remember the hallowed intonations of Walter Cronkite on the uselessness of continued combat in Southeast Asia. What Cronkite deemed lost must surely have been. So ingrained in the American psyche was his preeminence for reporting the facts that those facts must certainly have been correct.
The infection of the newsroom continues unabated today with such lackluster cronies as Brian Williams, Charles Gibson, and Katie Couric reporting a brand of news so skewed to the Left that "embarrassing" would be its most flattering description. Think of President Obama's reference to sleeping with Brian Williams and words lose meaning to convey a sense of outrage. Beneath the veneer of an Obama attempt at humor was a major news outlet willing to do the administration's bidding.
These are the pillars Liberal Progressives have safely ensconced in their method of attack on America. The restoration of our country to a more reasonable state may lie beyond hope. Those of us who can must make our voices heard to all of the above institutions. We have to come in from the wilderness of being afraid to confront Liberals on their ground. We must fight the bankrupt ideas of socialism in academia through the media. The internet has given us an outlet that must not be squandered; it may well provide the ground for a last stand.
We will Prevail, come November 2010
Semper Fi.
end
Doctor Right| 3.3.10 @ 9:32AM
Barry Obow-ma is playing a dangerous game, and he's going to lose...BIG.
We Americans aren't sheep-like Euro-weenies...We don't roll-over (except for the Libs) and allow our freedoms to be destroyed without a fight.
...And I fear that there's a fight coming...NOT a political fight, either.
Melvin| 3.3.10 @ 10:58AM
Doctor Right, you have hit upon a fact that most Euro-snob wannabees politicians here for varied reasons want to emulate and don't seem to fathom.
"We are not Europeans!" and that is the reason our fore-fathers during the great migrations left the damn place to begin with.
I would love to pop in the nose the next mayor of a US city touting, "This is how English do it in London."
ThePricklyThorn| 3.3.10 @ 9:44AM
All rights are God given, and it is up to us to fight for them whenever anyone other then God tries to take them away from us, and this includes the government. Government can only play two roles when it comes to these rights: 1) It can work to protect them, or 2) it can infringe upon them. But make no mistake, government cannot "Give" rights to anyone....
Al Adab| 3.3.10 @ 10:21AM
We have long ignored the Constitution - as we now know to our peril- when it was inconvienient or in the way of "getting something done". Finally we have reached a point where the danger to our underlying liberties has become manifest and it is that which results in the organized opposition we witness today.
Douglas Brinkley in his recent book Wilderness Warrior about TR and the acts mention is very instructive. As we all know the certain road is paved with good intentions.
Whether we have in fact sold our birthright of liberty for the pottage bowl of ostensible "security" will soon be seen. How we react and what we are willing to accept by way of a cost to restore our lost individual independance remains the question. Are we willing to give up that temporary security to preserve for future generations the Liberty we had so dearly bought? They will curse our name should we fail.
Northern Rebel| 3.3.10 @ 11:25AM
Yet another reason to sandblast Teddy Roosevelt's face from Mt. Rushmore!
What he started has now mutated into governmaent being able to seize homes in Groton Connecticut, through the owners off the land, then not even build the things they said they were gonna build!
That is "progressivism", in a nutshell!
Will we have to put a statue of "president" Anti-Christ at each of these "national parks" in the Stalin fashion?
Samuel Clemens | 3.3.10 @ 11:45AM
We are doing everything possible to keep their hands off of our land in Nevada.
Whoa partner| 3.3.10 @ 5:28PM
Although the use of the authority to designate national monuments is legitimately controversial, some commenters here seem to confuse it with eminent domain. The president's authority to designate national monuments is limited to designation of land that is already owned by the federal government. It does not allow him to take land owned by anyone else. It only allows the transfer of land management from one federal agency to another (which often results in major changes in the use the land is put to.)
Eminent domain was not initiated by Teddy Roosevelt; it existed before the Constitution and is regulated in the 5th Amendment.
Mark M| 3.3.10 @ 8:58PM
How did the voice of reason sneak into this discussion?
Pingback| 3.3.10 @ 6:32PM
The American Spectator : The West and the 10th Tools links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Marc Jeric| 3.3.10 @ 7:10PM
I give up; no sense in fighting. Communism is alive and well, and is surely overtaking the country, step by step. My personal tragedy is that I had escaped the communist hell back in 1957, and I am close to departing this world at the age of 77 back again in the same communist hell.
Mark M| 3.3.10 @ 9:07PM
So you don't like national monuments, fine. Are National Parks communist too? Would the Grand Canyon be better if it was managed like Disney Land? What about public roads? Would you prefer to pay a toll every time you get on a road? I suppose the tolls should be unregulated too so the owners can charge whatever the market will be bear? As long as we're against regulation we wouldn't want to tell people how to drive so the roads in our anti-communist regime will all have different rules, different speed limits, you'll drive on different sides of the road, etc based on the whim of the private owner. Keep the government out of it.
Really the military is kind of commi too. What with their public funding, communal housing, and public health care.
Seriously—if you escaped communism back in the 50s then you can't possibly think that a simple change in management status of public land compares to the horror of Stalin, can you? This kind of hyperbole doesn't help your cause.
victor| 3.3.10 @ 10:57PM
What a load of manure you are peddling, and you don't even know it. Or maybe you do and you don't care.
We already have toll roads governed by the states and they raise those tolls at a moments notice.State already impose speed limits and other restrictions, so that is really another Red Herring.
The Military, which you probably were not a part of, is Constitutionally Mandated or are you that obtuse?
Stalin and Hitler started out innocuous enough, much as FDR did, "I'm only doing this, for your own good and the good of the nation."
Tyrannies don't start out as tyrannies, but as Populist Mandates.
You really need to read history, that is, if they taught you that in school.
I read that 70% of Universities and colleges have Remedial Education for incoming Freshmen.
You have such a perverted view of life that I'm afraid you will suffer for a few decades before seeing the light.
After all. I suffered as liberal for twenty years before the scale fell from my eyes.
Repent! While you still have time!
Mark M| 3.4.10 @ 1:35AM
Well, you missed my point Victor, which was that all government is not bad, and all free markets are not a panacea. There is a place for balance.
But really, if you used to be a liberal and now you call yourself a conservative—you've gone from one extreme to the other—you are just taking you talking points from a different set of people who are manipulating you toward different ends. The scales on your eyes are still very much in place.
victor| 3.3.10 @ 10:47PM
Greetings Mark!
My parents too came here in 1957, I was just 4 years old. My father, til the day he died never regretted coming here to America.
Pay no attention to these young whippersnappers, we are going to kick their butts this coming November and the November in 2012.
The Founders gave us the means and the tools to defeat the Statists, one of which is the Tenth Amendment and there are those brave and wise enough to use it, and no matter what you call them, they will lose.
My parents escaped both Nazi's and Communists, tyrannies both, but they came here to be Americans and Americans they were and will be to the end.
victor| 3.3.10 @ 10:58PM
This reply was to Marc Jeric.
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Mick| 3.5.10 @ 4:55PM
The states can fight back...charge extremely high rents on all federal activity in the state...and block access by any fed to any of the land seized.
All these land grabs are unconstitional as they are not contained in any of the enumerated powers...and the AA law is itself unconstitional for the same reason.
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