Salt Lake Tribune – President Trump’s review of recently created national monuments, especially the 1.3 million-acre Bears Ears National Monument, is a unique opportunity to reflect on the uses and abuses of the Antiquities Act. The Bears Ears designation is a cautionary tale of the nearly unlimited power of the president and how that power affects real Americans.
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Inside Sources – While the Antiquities Act may have been important for preserving some Native American artifacts, recent monument designations have allowed presidents to affect the access to and use of millions of acres of land without regard to local effects.
Deseret News – This spring, officials representing the Navajo Nation sent a letter to President Barack Obama calling for the designation of the Bears Ears Buttes as a national monument, sparking a debate that has reached a national level during the…
Inside Sources – President Obama in August used his authority under the antiquities act to designate 87,500 acres of private land in Northern Maine as a national monument. The land belonged to Roxanne Quimby, co-founder of Burt’s Bees…
Inside Sources – The United States has averaged more than $1 billion in spending on wildfire suppression every year since 2000, and spent more than $2 billion in wildfire management for 2015, making up more than half of the U.S. Forest Service budget…
The Daily Caller – Over the last year, celebrations of the National Park Services’ 100th Anniversary have been ongoing, and the Park Service as well as individual parks have rightly celebrated the national treasures our parks are. As August 25th comes and goes, there are reasons, however, for concern about the future of those very parks.
Inside Sources – The presidential election has renewed the debate over conservation versus development on federal public lands. Hillary Clinton has been campaigning on a platform of “collaborative stewardship” to promote both conservation and development. Donald Trump, in his ever-so-eloquent style, said we “have to be great…
The Daily Caller – Yellowstone, our nation’s oldest national park, is a prime example of how time and experience don’t always amount to the best outcomes. Politics have always been a part of national park management, and politics can detract from the best management decisions and lead to unintended consequences.
Duluth News Tribune – This year the National Park Service celebrates its centennial. Despite the celebrations, not everything is well in our national parks. Just this year in Yellowstone, popular media covered stories of a bison calf that was euthanized after tourists put it in their car and a tourist who died when he fell in an acidic hot spring.
On March 1, Yosemite National Park changed vendors, dumping Delaware North in favor of Aramark, with a $2 billion concession contract for the next 15 years. The shift prompted visitors to snap up items from the Ahwahnee Hotel and Curry Village, longstanding landmarks soon to be renamed. The true Yosemite memorabilia…
The Hill – Strata’s Ryan Yonk remembers the beautiful scenery around his family’s home…