Westerners fear Obama preparing monuments land grab

Thomas Burr
The Salt Lake Tribune
5/2/2014

…Obama already has named a handful of monuments across the country — using his unilateral power under the 1906 Antiquities Act — and has promised more.

“I’ll use my authority to protect more of our pristine federal lands for future generations,” he said in his State of the Union address earlier this year.

That commitment has some in the West fearing more intrusion by the federal government into their backyard, undermining locally driven efforts to decide the future of public lands. That fear isn’t without precedent.

“It makes me worried that [the president will] just ignore the wishes of the people of Utah and just do what he wants to — like Clinton did,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a recent Salt Lake Tribune interview. “Sometimes he does act unilaterally.”…

 

Possible candidates for national monument status

Alpine Lakes – Washington

Berryessa Snow Mountain – California

Boulder-White Clouds – Idaho

Desolation Canyon – Eastern Utah

Diné Bikéyah – San Juan County, Utah

Gold Butte – Nevada

Greater Canyonlands — Southeastern Utah

Organ Mountains – New Mexico

Rocky Mountain Front – Montana

San Gabriels – California

San Rafael Swell – Emery County, Utah

Tule Springs – Nevada

 

 

The complete article is at The Salt Lake Tribune.

 

 

 

 

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