Free Republic

More Senate skullduggery, Trump’s role in this, straight lines, and the Bundy case again Senate chicanery Last month I wrote of the skullduggery applied by both political parties in trying to pass a 680-page federal lands package in the waning moments of the last Congress. Up stepped our hero, Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) who just wanted to add two words to the legislation. Alaska and Wyoming are by statute exempt from the Antiquities Act that has been so abused by recent Presidents. Senator Lee wanted to add “and Utah” to that statute. The leadership said no to his amendment,...

The shrinking in size of two national monuments in Utah by President Trump through executive order was a long overdue rebuke to federal land grabs that have given federal control to vast swaths of American land, particularly in the West. As the New York Times noted in 2016: The United States government owns 47 percent of all land in the West. In some states, including Oregon, Utah and Nevada, the majority of land is owned by the federal government. Of course, it used to own nearly all of it... East of the Mississippi…the federal government owns only 4 percent of...

Today marked an important moment as President Donald Trump made much-needed changes to sweeping land use designations made under previous administrations. The Trump administration listened to the combined voices of individual citizens, tribal members, small communities, and elected officials from the county, state, and federal levels. In doing so, Trump has responded to Utahns’ calls by dramatically reducing the size of both the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, which had a combined land mass larger than the state of Connecticut. This is a good step forward in reforming a law that has too easily been abused to drown...

Former Navy SEAL and current Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke delivers brief remarks at the Capitol Building in Utah. Prior to President Trump signing a national monument proclamation, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told a packed-house crowd the Antiquities Act, an obscure law that Barack Obama used to broaden federal monuments in Utah, ‘was never meant to prevent. It was meant to protect.’ “Our public land is for the public to use,” Zinke said.

The grapevines that line rolling hillsides and sweeping valleys in Northern California’s wine country have become iconic – a symbol of the region’s rustic charm that helped California earn its reputation as a world-class wine and food destination. But winegrapes have new competition: weed. California’s legalization of recreational marijuana has led to the beginning of a major transformation of wine country. It’s been just seven months, but already investors are snapping up property where wine was once produced. Vineyard operators are developing expertise in cannabis cultivation. New, specialty marijuana businesses are sprouting up in Sonoma and Mendocino counties. And farmers...

Over the last 20 years, presidents from both sides of the aisle have used the stroke of a pen to lock up hundreds of millions of acres using the Antiquities Act, but none more egregiously than President Obama. In 2014, then-President Obama said, “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone. And that’s all I need.” This braggadocious one-liner was the basis for devastating monument designations by the Obama administration. President Trump’s recent Executive Order directs Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to review national monuments created by the Antiquities Act since 1996 that exceed 100,000 acres and to...

Obama sidestepped Congress to declare 33 national monuments by executive order under the Antiquities Act of 1906 After eight years of oppressive restrictions on every facet of the mining industry from coal to gold, miners are finally beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel. President Donald Trump today signed an executive order to review national monument designations made under the Antiquities Act by former President Barack Obama.

House lawmakers kicked off their effort to push back against national monuments designations, targeting the large swaths of ocean the Obama administration made off limits to fishing. “I don’t believe the Antiquities Act should have ever been applied to oceans,” Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young said during a Wednesday hearing on marine monument designations. “There was never intent of that.” Republicans on the House Committee on Natural Resources have long criticized former President Barack Obama’s use of the Antiquities Act to put millions of square miles off limits to commercial fishing with little to no input from locals. With President...

A coalition of commercial fishing groups filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to challenge the creation of a national monument off the coast of New England. President Barack Obama created the monument in September using executive authority under the Antiquities Act. The monument is called the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, and it is made up of nearly 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains. The creation of the monument closed the area to most commercial fishing and has been opposed by fishing groups for months. A coalition of the groups filed their lawsuit Tuesday in federal court....

President Obama has created two new national monuments in southeastern Utah and southern Nevada totalling 1.64 million acres, despite intense opposition from American Indians living in the area. Obama created the Bears Ears and Gold Butte national monuments using his powers under the Antiquities Act, adding to the 265 million acres of lands the president has already put under stricter federal regulation. The White House set aside 1.47 million acres of land to create the controversial Bears Ears monument, which has been opposed by local Navajo tribal members despite being supported by tribal officials. “Today’s actions will help protect this...

Every US state has a motto. Some are interesting, like “Live Free of Die,” in New Hampshire, and some are sadly truthful, like, “Our Government is Vampiric” in Massachusetts. Just kidding. It’s more along the lines of “We’ll Tax You to Death,” or something like that. Anyway, some, like the motto for the 49th state, Alaska, are very upbeat and offer a sense of adventure. In Alaska, politicians tell us to look, “North, to The Future.” But, a shocking move by the federal government might inspire Alaskans to change their motto to, “Our Land Is Being Stolen By The Feds!”...

Rep. Paul Gosar (AZ-04) questions BLM Director Neil Kornze during a House Oversight Subcommittee hearing about the coordination between the White House and the BLM to lock up more public lands in Western states using the Antiquities Act.

Three months after Breitbart News and others outed Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) 's backdoor effort to freeze development on over one million acres of California dessert by having President Obama declare the area subject to the Antiquities Act of 1906, her efforts are going down in flames as Congressional Republicans are moving to ban the Antiquities designation. Feinstein's seven-year quest to convince "ongress to sequester over 1560 square miles of the Mojave Desert into three new national monuments under her proposed 'Desert Conservation and Recreation Act" has gone nowhere. Feinstein has argued that the area she wants designated as 'Mojave...

Grand County companies whose owners signed a letter to President Obama supporting federal protection for 1.4 million acres surrounding Canyonlands National Park are facing an economic boycott that some say has been spurred by the locally-based Sagebrush Coalition. The coalition’s Facebook page includes a list of local and national companies that signed the Nov. 13 letter from the Outdoor Industry Association urging Obama to create the Greater Canyonlands National Monument. ... Sagebrush Coalition president James Tibbetts ... opposes monument status for land around Canyonlands National Park because it isn’t necessary. “We’ve used it all these years and we haven’t ruined...

This week marks the beginning of the end of the long national nightmare known as the 111th Congress.  Republicans were given a second chance—by default—through a national effort to stop the destructive Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda. House Republicans are poised to begin making the same kind of business-as-usual mistakes that relegated the party to minority status in 2006.  The most glaring example is the looming threat of having Rep. Fred Upton (RINO-Mich.) become chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, despite his liberal voting record, simply because he’s next in line.  If there is one thing voters made absolutely clear...

10. Land use -- Review executive orders concerning the Antiquities Act designations of lands by the government. Under Bill Clinton, millions of acres of lands were locked up by executive fiat and, because these actions were not established by law, they can be undone by executive action of a subsequent President. 9. Oil drilling -- Continue to push the Outer Continental Shelf planning process so that newly opened OCS acreage can be leased for future oil drilling. 8. Oil shale leasing -- Issue the final leasing regulations for oil shale leasing in the Western United States. Without these, the U.S....

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) --  The Supreme Court refused Monday to consider overturning former President Clinton's orders protecting more than 2 million acres of federal land in five Western states.</p> <p>Clinton used a century-old law to create national monuments in places like California's Sequoia National Forest. Timber interests, recreation groups and Tulare County, Calif. argued at the Supreme Court that the restrictions on timbering there have been harmful.</p>

WASHINGTON — Land rights advocates (search) are scratching their heads as to why the White House has asked the Supreme Court not to hear two cases challenging seven controversial national monuments named by President Clinton in the waning days of his administration. During his race for president in 2000, then-Gov. George W. Bush campaigned against the monuments, giving hope to many western landowners who found their private property subject to strict federal protections. Three years later, the monuments remain, encompassing millions of acres of land in places like Montana, Oregon, Nevada and Idaho, where the government already owns huge chunks...

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Advocates of pro-development property rights in the West on Wednesday requested a full-court review of an environmentally friendly ruling that upheld former President Bill Clinton's designation of six national monuments during the waning days of his administration. While critics found it galling that the outgoing president was able to place 2 million acres of federal lands off limits to development with the stroke of a pen, they were unable to overturn his actions in their previous foray into federal court. Last month, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington upheld...

DENVER (AP) -- Property-rights groups plan to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to determine whether President Clinton acted illegally when he protected Colorado's Canyons of the Ancients, California's groves of giant sequoias and six other federal tracts as national monuments in 2000. On Friday, a federal appeals court in Washington rejected arguments by the Mountain States Legal Foundation, timber interests and recreation groups that Clinton overstepped his authority when he established seven national monuments in five states during the last months of his administration. William Perry Pendley, president of Mountain States Legal Foundation, said Clinton violated the Antiquities Act of...