Utah’s Rob Bishop has a Bargain for us: www.sltrib.com/...
Bishop, who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, will unveil his draft legislation affecting 18 million acres of public land in seven eastern Utah counties, according to an announcement released Friday. The initiative has been billed as a "grand bargain" designed to resolve long-running disputes over uses of Utah's public lands. The goal is to designate landscapes for conservation and others for mineral development, in hopes of putting an end to these fights and lift much of the uncertainty that surrounds the future of Cedar Mesa, Greater Canyonlands, San Rafael Swell, Book Cliffs and other areas where scenic vistas overlap with rich mineral deposits.
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One of the initiative's main goals was to forestall President Barack Obama's use of the Antiquities Act to designate a national monument in Utah before he leaves office in a year. Many believe he is poised to designate one in San Juan County, where thousands of ancient American Indian sites are at risk from looting and ATV use.
Bishop touted his initiative as representing the interests and points of view of “stakeholders” in each county. But in fact the proposals from each county came from the local elected officials, who decided whose interests were heard.
In San Juan County, officials decided nobody from “outside” the county could participate---despite the fact that federal land in Utah belongs to and is used by all Americans. And it left out the Native American tribes who have lived in the region for thousands of years.
Left out of the process by the counties, the tribes formed an inter-tribal coalition to make its own proposal directly to Bishop. They put together a remarkable proposal: indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/...
But Bishop wasn't really interested: www.moabsunnews.com/...
Frustrated with Utah's congressional delegation, the [Inter-Tribal Coalition told Bishop in late December that it] will instead encourage the Obama administration to designate a national monument in southeastern Utah. In a letter to GOP Reps. Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz, the coalition cites missed deadlines, a lack of substantive comments to its proposal and “raw, heavy-handed, political overreaching,” as reasons for its withdrawal. “We have come to the conclusion that we have no choice but to discontinue these discussions,” the letter says. “Our strenuous efforts to participate in the (Public Lands Initiative), and related proceedings before that ... have been repeatedly stonewalled. We have not been taken seriously.”
...The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, which includes members of the Hopi, Navajo, Ute and Zuni Pueblo tribes, is seeking the protection of 1.9 million acres of federal public lands in San Juan County that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service currently administer. The area contains diverse ecosystems, vast scenic landscapes and is rich in archaeological resources dating from prehistoric to historic times. It is also home to modern traditional land uses such as grazing, uranium mining and wood harvesting. The coalition presented a formal proposal to Bishop and Chaffetz in October 2015.
“Now, two and a half months after submitting our proposal to you, we have received no reactions at all,” the letter says.
Bishop might not like the Tribes’ Monument proposal, but 66% of Utahns support a Bears Ears National Monument, according to the most recent State of the Rockies poll. www.coloradocollege.edu/…
Let’s hope they have President Obama’s ear too.
See: www.bearsearscoalition.org