Action Alert: President Plans to Visit CA Desert in Move to Designate Massive National Monument

Action Alert

President Plans to Visit CA Desert in Move to Designate Massive National Monument

Administration officials have accepted Senator Dianne Feinstein's (D-CA) invitation to visit the California Desert and will attend a public meeting on Tuesday, October 13, and consider designating 1 million acres in the area as National Monuments. Senator Feinstein also has pending legislation which would not only address the area being considered for National Monument designation, but would also statutorily designate 5 OHV areas.

It is inappropriate for the Administration to even consider a National Monument designation in the area as Feinstein's collaboratively developed legislation is moving in the Senate (a legislative hearing is scheduled on the bill on October 8), and Representative Paul Cook (R-CA) has recently introduced companion legislation in the House.

Please send an email to the President and the Interior Secretaryopposing the designation of 1 million acres of the California Desert as National Monuments.

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Background:

As it stands, the Antiquities Act of 1906 grants the President the authority to designate "…historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments." The Antiquities Act also holds that national monuments should be "…confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected…," yet Presidents of both parties have, in our view, inappropriately designated enormous swaths of public lands as national monuments.

Too often when widespread local and Congressional support to designate public lands as Wilderness cannot be established, Wilderness proponents turn to a strategy of calling for the President to achieve similar goals by administratively designating the area as a National Monument. It is no secret that those most affected by land use decisions are those who live, recreate and make their livelihoods on or near the public lands in question.