You’ll find that the sentence I wrote can be interpreted both ways, and you chose the ungenerous interpretation. The National Monument designation does not inherently prevent all roads from being built. A particular instance may prevent some types of roads from being built. But this latter case is true for any kind of land designation, from city residential zones to Federal parks, so it would have been pointless to mention.
after reading all the links that everyone has provided. . .it seems to me that your very own congressional “asshats” dragged their feet on the Public Lands Initiative for almost seven years and couldn’t even get it out of committee. and the main reason that utahans seem to be mad is that the outgoing President used his legal authority and did something about it. The PLI would have been essentially the same as the monument designation. so the fuss seems to be “because, Obama”
[QUOTE=http://fox13now.com/2016/12/28/president-obama-expected-to-designate-bears-ears-national-monument/]
Both sides have acknowledged the area needs some measure of protection, but it is the methods of it that have drawn division. Congressmen Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz pushed a public lands initiative, opposing the White House’s use of the Antiquities Act.
[/QUOTE]
and maybe a little racism
mc
I asked you what sort of evidence you’d consider valid. You didn’t answer. Let’s try this:Poll: Utahns want Trump to change or undo Bears Ears:
Not really seeing an overwhelming majority there. I’m glad it’s just an EO with no real force and effect. I guess we’ll see if you get your ATV track or not as things unfold.
Is it your opinion that the Feds are the only ones that can manage to successfully strike a balance between conservation and economic development?
Do you see something more than a party of one? Assuming your answer is ‘yes’, then I’ll chalk it up as some progress.
I’d call it something more like “the first step in the process”, but YMMV.
Compared to real estate developers and mining companies? Yes.
How about the state of Utah? There’s a not-insignificant portion of Utah that is owned and managed by state agencies. We’ve got state parks, SITLA lands, etc. Do you imagine it’s all been strip mined or sold off to the highest bidder?
Than mess up your own land.
As DSYoungEsq pointed out, Bear Ears belongs to everyone.
And it’ll still “belong to everyone” when it’s no longer a National Monument, just like it did 5 months ago.
According to the wiki page, there are “some 109,100 acres of land within the boundaries of the monument are owned by the State of Utah, while 12,600 acres are privately owned”
Can’t you build the ATV trail there?
Then why do you care what it’s designated?
Look, I don’t know much about something that is evidently a local issue for you, but if you’re going to respond to reasonable questions with straw man arguments like these, then what’s the point of this thread?
I specifically said that two activities - mining and ATV use (to a lesser degree) - are pretty destructive by nature. And you posted articles that said essentially that protecting Bear Ears was widely supported in the community.
I cannot reconcile what you cited earlier - that there’s wide agreement on protection - with your apparent support for pretty harmful activities. It doesn’t make any sense to me, like as if you said that everyone in a town supports gun control and ready availability of automatic firearms, so I seek an explaination. Can you provide one or not?
Not if we’re not allowed to build a road from the edge of the monument to those land-locked lands.
Is that the case?
In any event, this fact sheet says “The national monument designation will not impact the rights of private landowners within or adjacent to the national monument, including
existing access within the national monument boundary”
Are you talking about these quotes?
There’s obviously a lot of room along the spectrum between “strip mine all the things” and “no resource extraction at all”. Herbert, Stewart, Hatch, and most of the Utah Republicans feel like Bears Ears went too far towards the “no resource extraction at all” side of things. There exists a consensus that there are some sensitive areas within that 1.35 million acres that are worth protecting, and a pretty broad feeling that not all 1.35 million acres need to be off-limits to future mining / development.
Yes. I’d emphasize the word “existing” from your fact sheet. Obama’s proclamation said “Any additional roads or trails designated for motorized vehicle use must be for the purposes of public safety or protection of such objects.”
If SITLA were to auction off mining rights to a plot of land surrounded on all sides by Bears Ears, and then the purchaser were to request permission to build a road to get to their newly-purchased mining rights, they’d be told “no”. This essentially means that SITLA can’t auction off mining rights on any of its lands that don’t have an already-existing road to it. Ditto with making ATV trails on Utah-owned land within the confines of Bears Ears.
Building/maintaining roads to land-locked private areas is a really obvious use of the “public safety” clause that you cited earlier.
Are you saying there are currently no access roads to the Utah and privately owned land located within the monument?
I was talking about this quote from Senator Hatch: “The Bears Ears are sacred to local Native American tribes, and the surrounding area is home to thousands of archaeological sites that detail the history of the land’s ancient inhabitants. That these cultural sites deserve protection is beyond dispute.”
That clarifies things some. So do they just want to tinker with the edges of the boundaries a little bit? By how much? Like make it 10% smaller? Or like 50% smaller?