For the 27th time since he took office, President Obama used the 1906 Antiquities Act Thursday to extend permanent protection to public lands from commercial activity and development. This time that land—4,913 square miles of it, about the size of Connecticut—is underwater.
Given the view of right-wing Republicans that the president is abusing his authority in designating monuments, there will no doubt be some grumbling about this one. I’ll return to that in a moment.
Designated the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, the ecosystem is home to 73 unique kinds of corals, fin, right, sei and endangered sperm whales, tunas, sharks, dolphins, sea turtles, numerous seabirds, including puffins, and ravines deeper than the Grand Canyon. The monument’s four seamounts are the only ones in the U.S. Atlantic. The monument lies about 150 miles southeast of Cape Cod. It will be managed by the departments of Interior and Commerce.
The announcement of the new monument was made Thursday morning at the third annual “Our Oceans” conference. Some other nations also announced they are permanently preserving some marine environments.
The designation prohibits most commercial fishing, as well as undersea drilling and mining. Commercial red crab and lobster fisheries get seven years to phase out their activities within the monument, but all other commercial fisheries have 60 days to cease operations. The economic impact will be minor, according to White House officials, because only a relatively small number of fishing vessels now ply the area. Recreational fishing will still be permitted. Lee Crockett at the Pew Charitable Trusts writes:
In 2013, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sent a deep-sea submersible vehicle to probe the region and capture video of the abundance of marine life there.
On their missions to the area, researchers discovered rare species and explored a series of canyons and underwater mountains that rise as high as 7,000 feet from the seafloor—the only such formations in the U.S. Atlantic.
The protected area includes three canyons and four underwater mountains, where scientists have documented hundreds of species. Brilliant cold-water corals, some the size of small trees, form the foundation of deep-sea ecosystems, providing food, spawning habitat, and shelter for fish and other marine animals.
Brad Sewell of the National Resources Defense Council pointed out that even with the backing of Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal and the rest of the Connecticut congressional delegation, the monument would not have come to be without support of a broad coalition, including 300,000 citizens who made their views known the past year. Message: Never doubt the clout of citizen action. He wrote:
If we are going to protect and restore our oceans, and rely on them as a source of food and enjoyment even as pressures and threats mount, the type of bold, trailblazing action that the President took today is exactly what we need. In particular, we need to build ecological resilience and protect genetic diversity to insulate marine populations against climate change and ocean acidification. With New England ocean waters already undergoing some of the greatest temperature increases on the planet, this action is none too soon. Last week, the nations and organizations at the IUCN World Conservation Congress urged world leaders to protect 30% of the planet’s oceans by 2030. The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is an excellent step in answering this call.
In his first years in office, even Republicans praised some of President Obama’s choices for monuments or monument expansions. But as the number grew, they started talking about so-called abuse of authority and the need to rein him in. Putting Obama on a leash, of course. is something most of them have been eager to do on just about every issue of importance.
Consequently, delegates voted at the Republican National Convention this summer to include in their party platform a revocation of the president’s authority to designate national monuments. It states that congressional and state approval should be required for designating any new ones. Not unexpected from a party where “returning” public lands to the states has been a cry since the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s and ‘80s.
The monument-designating authority derives from the 1906 Antiquities Act, pushed through Congress by Republican President Teddy Roosevelt. It was considered necessary because of the decades of looting and desecrating American Indian and other sites such as Chaco Canyon. Had Roosevelt not assigned monument status to the Grand Canyon in 1908, there would probably be a Las Vegas-sized city there by now. He was prodigious with designations, making 18 of them during his terms of office. Not until Bill Clinton was president was that record superseded with the designation of 19 monuments. And now Obama has designated 24 and expanded three.
One of the leading proponents of changing the law is Republican Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah. At a meeting of the Western state land commissioners last summer, he called it, with a sharp nod to hyperbole, “the most evil act ever invented.”
President Obama could make Bishop angrier still by designating one more monument during the few months he has left in office.
It’s called Bear Ears, a 1.9 million-acre wilderness region of southeast Utah brimming with American Indian burial sites. State and federal officials, along with Indian tribes and environmental advocates, have been fighting over how the area should be managed and by whom for three decades. Five tribes have petitioned Obama to declare the region a monument. Twenty other tribes together with Utahns not of Bishop’s mind also are eager to see the area preserved.
Do it, Mr. President.