Trump advised to alter ‘a handful’ of national monuments, no change to Hanford Reach

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended Thursday that President Trump alter at least three national monuments established by his immediate predecessors, including one in Oregon and two in Utah, a move expected to reshape federal land and water protections and certain to trigger major legal fights.

In a report Zinke submitted to the White House, the secretary recommended reducing the size of Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, as well as Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, according to multiple individuals briefed on the decision.

Zinke said in July he would not recommend a modification to the Hanford Reach National Monument north of the Tri-Cities and kept that commitment. It had been included in the initial review of monuments.

The 200,000-acre monument was created by President Bill Clinton from shrub steppe land that remained largely undisturbed after it was designated a security zone around the Hanford nuclear reservation during World War II. The monument includes the last free-flowing, nontidal stretch of the Columbia River in the United States.

““I applaud the millions of people in Washington state and across the country who made their voices heard during this ‘review’ in order to make it crystal clear to the Trump Administration that families are committed to preserving our unique, wild places for future generations,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., on Thursday.

But she said the continued efforts to redraw monument boundaries “only doubles down on widespread fears that the Trump administration is singularly focused on giveaways to special interests.”

Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, issued a scathing critique of the process the administration was using to scale back the designations.

“Teddy Roosevelt would roll over in his grave if he could see what Donald Trump and Ryan Zinke are trying to do to our national treasures today,” she said. “Secretary Zinke’s secret report to the president is the latest step in a rigged process to try and turn over our public lands to oil and gas companies.”

The Interior Department did not give specifics on Zinke’s recommendations, instead releasing a report summary that described each of the 27 protected areas scrutinized as “unique.”

Bob Ferguson, the Washington state attorney general, said that “if the administration proceeds to unlawfully strip monuments of their protections, I intend to help our neighbors in defending their national monuments, and protect the right of Washingtonians to visit these important pieces of our national heritage.”

Trump had ordered Zinke to examine more than two dozen sites established by Clinton, Obama and George W. Bush under the 1906 Antiquities Act. The nearly four-month process pitted those who have felt marginalized by federal actions over the past 20 years against backers who see the sites as bolstering tourism and recreation while safeguarding important relics, environments and species.

Zinke’s proposal takes direct aim at a handful of the nation’s most controversial protected areas in the West, according to several individuals who asked for anonymity because the report has yet to be made public. Zinke, who had called for revising Bears Ears’ boundaries in an interim report in June, is recommending a “significant” reduction in its size, an administration official said.

Clinton declared the 1.9 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante in 1996, while President Barack Obama designated the 1.35 million-acre Bears Ears last year. Cascade-Siskiyou, which now encompasses more than 113,000 acres, was established by Clinton shortly before leaving office and expanded by Obama in January.

“No President should use the authority under the Antiquities Act to restrict public access, prevent hunting and fishing, burden private land, or eliminate traditional land uses, unless such action is needed to protect the object,” Zinke said in a statement. “The recommendations I sent to the president on national monuments will maintain federal ownership of all federal land and protect the land under federal environmental regulations, and also provide a much needed change for the local communities who border and rely on these lands for hunting and fishing, economic development, traditional uses, and recreation.”

A White House official confirmed that Trump had received the report but would not say when it would be released or when the president would act on Zinke’s recommendations.

“Comments received were overwhelmingly in favor of maintaining existing monuments and demonstrated a well-orchestrated national campaign organized by multiple organizations,” Zinke said in a statement. He acknowledged supporters’ point that monuments can bring economic benefits to local communities.

But he also noted opponents’ concerns that designations had translated into reduced public access, confusing management plans “and pressure applied private land owners ... to sell.”

Zinke did not recommend abolishing any monument. Still, some of the key constituencies most critical of sweeping restrictions for federal lands and waters – ranchers, fishing operators and local Republican politicians – apparently won key concessions in his final set of recommendations.

The report also calls for changing the management rules for these sites, such as allowing fishing in marine monuments where it is currently prohibited.

Environmental groups made clear that they would file legal challenges in an effort to preserve these sites’ existing boundaries and protections. While Congress can alter national monuments easily through legislation, presidents have reduced their boundaries only on rare occasions.

Woodrow Wilson nearly halved the acreage of Mount Olympus National Monument, which Theodore Roosevelt had established six years earlier. In 1938, the U.S. attorney general wrote a formal opinion saying the Antiquities Act authorized presidents to establish a monument but did not grant them the right to abolish one, and several legal scholars argue that Congress indicated in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 that it reserved the right to alter any existing monument.

Robert D. Rosenbaum, who serves as counsel to the National Parks Conservation Association, said Wednesday that no president has sought to shrink a monument’s boundaries in the past four decades: “If the president attempts unilaterally to take adverse action on any of the monuments under review, he would be on very shaky legal ground, and we expect the action would be challenged in federal court.”

Tribal officials have lobbied hard to preserve Bears Ears, which boasts extensive ancestral Pueblo artifacts and rock art. Seven tribes in Utah and the Fort Peck Assiniboine & Sioux Tribes of Montana, which counts Zinke as an adopted member, have all passed resolutions this month calling for the monument’s boundaries to remain in place.

But many western Republicans criticized such large protected areas as a distortion of the law’s original intent. In a call with reporters on Thursday House Natural Resources Committee, Chairman Rob Bishop, R-Utah, said that “Congress never intended one individual to unilaterally dictate land management policies for enormous swaths of federal land.”

“It’s about how we protect our resources, not if we protect them,” said Bishop, noting that Obama had applied his authority under the Antiquities Act to more than 550 million acres of land and sea. “That’s 190,000 acres of land and water locked up for every day he was in office.”

This story was originally published August 24, 2017 at 4:39 PM with the headline "Trump advised to alter ‘a handful’ of national monuments, no change to Hanford Reach."