Salazar Says Feds Aren’t Poised for Western Monument ‘Land Grab’

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By Courtney Lowery, 3-10-10



	Pompey's Pillar National Monument in Montana. Photo by Larry D. Moore and used here under creative commons license.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says talk of his department creating new national monuments in Montana and other Western states was just “brainstorming.”

The issue became big news after after an internal memo about the subject was leaked last month, setting off alarms in many, if not all, Western congressional offices and certainly across the Rockies. Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg is even planning legislation that would halt such activity.

But, Salazar maintains that the feds are not out for a land grab. He tells Ledyard King of the Gannett Washington Bureau in today’s ,Great Falls Tribune, “They were brainstorming sessions that basically said, ‘These are the areas that could be protected, and the way you protect them is through a variety of different means, and this is one option, but it doesn’t mean that’s the option that we select.”

And, when Sen. Jon Tester’s questioned him about the issue at a Tuesday hearing, he said, “There are no plans that we have to move forward” and that there have been “no directions from the White House that we move forward on monument designation.”

King’s story in the Tribune is a good exploration of the issue, read it here.

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By Courtney Lowery, 3-10-10 | comments (5) | email story | print story

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Comments

By Dave Skinner, 3-11-10

So that's what he says. That doesn't deny that there were serious internal discussions about a major series of new national monuments, and judging by the language, more than a few enthusiasts just licking their chops at becoming park rangers.

By David Leland Hyde, 3-11-10

If they are private lands, then these days I would much rather trust local community land trusts to protect them, than the Federal Government, even if they are suggested as National Monuments. Local ranchers, farmers and others who are usually in opposition to environmentalists and preserving wilderness, are usually in support of local land trusts. Any more, I just don't trust the Federal Government and its motives for wanting to take control of more private land. Why would a government that is in hock over its head to the Chinese and Saudis want to spend more money on buying private land anyway?

By John K. Apel, 3-12-10

Designation of National Monuments by a President is limited by law to existing federal lands. Private, state, county, city or any other non-federal lands can not be designated as National Monuments via a Presidential Proclamation.

By Brodie Farquhar, 3-15-10

Apel is quite right in that national monuments apply only to existing federal lands. Designation as a national monument would add layers of protection.
Theodore Roosevelt drove Western politicians crazy with his proclamations creating new monuments. And Bill Clinton stirred up a hornet's nest when he created the Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument in southern Utah.
There's no possibility of a new national monument in Wyoming, since the deal that created Grand Teton National Park precludes ANY future national monument proclamations in Wyoming -- a unique status for the Cowboy State. As a result, no president, not even President Obama can protect the spectacular Adobe Town with a simple proclamation.
It would literally take an act of Congress to provide more protections to Adobe Town.

By David Leland Hyde, 3-15-10

Just shows you that I am not as up on land laws as my father, conservationist photographer Philip Hyde. He would have known all the ins and outs of the issue. Do any of you know if that has always been the law regarding the formation of national monuments? I would be in favor of more national monuments, if they can only be formed out of public lands. In the earliest days I guess it was all federal land, as stolen from the Native Americans. Nonetheless, the point remains that in the case of private lands, private land trusts are the way to go.

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