A few weeks ago I posted a comment in the diary covering actions Senator Elizabeth Warren has proposed doing upon taking office as president. I recommended modernizing the Antiquities Act as something she should pursue, and it was recommended I do a diary on the subject. this is that diary.
Long-time posters on DKOS who have read my comments, and National Park diaries, know only too well my passion for conservation and my belief that we need a massive commitment to conservation similar to what was done during the Depression in order to protect America’s special places. Part of that commitment is a refreshing of the Antiquities Act, in order to be a stronger deterrent to vandals, a quicker way to both protect special places across the country and most importantly, sufficiently fund the new monuments as part of the initial proclamation.
The Antiquities Act was signed into law on June 8th 1906, granting the president the authority to create monuments by proclamation, the size and number of the monuments left to the presidents discretion. Section 1 of the law sets the penalties for violating the act, a misdemeanor with fines of $500 and/or a prison sentence of 90 days. Those penalties have not been changed in the century-plus since, and as acts by the Bundys in Malheur or the vandals who recently smashed a wooden hut display in Ocmulgee National Monument show, the penalties have not been an adequate deterrent.
My proposal to change the Antiquities Act is 3-fold:
1. Increase the penalties for damaging exhibits, Indian ruins, artifacts wildlife habitat or natural formations, from a misdemeanor to a felony, with up to 5 years in prison and 25000 dollars in fines,. So the bozo who topples a hoodoo in Oregon and posts it online, gets to spend 5 years in the clink.
2 Repeal the exemptions in Alaska and Wyoming, and allow for large monument proclamations in those states again. the 5000 acre monument limit in Alaska is wholly insufficient to conserve places like ANWR, Bristol Bay or Tongass, all of which cover many millions of acres. the blanket ban in Wyoming was a rider slipped into the bill expanding Grand Teton national park in 1950, which added Jackson Hole National monument into the park, but prevented further monument designations in the state except by Congress. This has proven to be a very short-sighted move, as the state has several areas, like the Bighorn Mountains, the Black Hills, and Red Desert which all deserve stronger conservation, and which would almost certainly have gotten monument status in the intervening 70 years. Congress has only created 1 monument in the state since 1950, Fossil Butte in 1972, covering around 8200 acres. Congress simply does not act quickly or often enough to justify restraining the president from acting. Congress can repeal monuments or defund them, but only on a case by case basis.
3. The president is granted the discretion to fund the monument upon designation, within a range of $100 million a year, up to 2 billion, for a period of 10 years. the funding comes out of a monument creation and maintenance fund appropriated by Congress, of $100 billion a year. this fund is automatically re-upped by Congress each year, and any unspent funds are rolled over to the next year. To ensure the intelligible principle is not violated, only Congress can reduce funding to a monument, and each monument must report to Congress on how the monument is managed and its funds are spent every 5 years, in year 5 and year 10, including signage, staffing, local and state partnerships and so on. Congress may decide to reduce or add funding at any period within that 10 year period, and the president may decide to add funding, provided the initial funding is not 2 billion. Only Congress may appropriate more than 2 billion a year.
Existing monuments are also eligible for funding, via expansions, provided the expansion is of significant acreage. So for instance, the recent expansion of Cascade Siskiyou would qualify. After 10 years, Congress takes over funding of the monuments for the following decades , funding them for 10 year periods, with the same level of funding each year. this allows for certainty in how the areas are managed, year to year.
This 3rd proposal would eliminate a lot of current fighting over monument creation as funding would come along with the proclamation. I doubt Utah would have griped as much about Bears Ears if it had come with a $ 2 billion pool of funding for management. A lot of that money would be sunk into the monument headquarters and neighboring areas. Currently, many monuments subsist on budgets of maybe a couple million a year . By requiring every monument get at least 100 million, a lot of current monuments would get the resources they need to address existing backlogs, and the fund would be large enough that you could address the backlogs in current areas while also adding in many new areas each year .
This would also add another consideration for groups proposing new monuments. It will no longer be enough to simply propose a monument and its size, but that the group must now also figure out how much money would reasonably be needed to manage and maintain the new monument, in pushing for Congress or the president to act. In practice, small, historic monuments, like say, Cahokia Mounds or Fort Wayne, would get towards the low end , $100 million a year or so. Large, scientific monuments, like Bristol Bay or Owyhee Canyonlands or San Rafeal Swell, would get the maximum.
I would expect that the wider public would greatly support these changes, particularly the funding mandate. Folks love their monuments and parks, and any initial opposition from the usual suspects would fade as people visit the now greatly expanded park system, which not only has many new areas to visit across the country but the backlogs of maintenance which has piled up over some 50 years has been eliminated entirely.
Naturally, this will only realistically happen with Democrats in control of the White House, and Congress. as far as legal challenges go, the Supreme Court has ruled that the presidents discretion to create monuments is nearly without limit and that Congress may make rules for federal lands as its sees fit . By giving him a purse of money, and setting limits on discretion ( cant go over 2 billion, cant go under 100 million, cant shrink funding or monument size) and requiring regular reports to Congress, Congress is expressing its intent for large scale conservation by pushing the president to set areas aside, while providing enough of a check, that it would pass court muster. by adding a financial underpinning to an already established system, you are strengthening the system.
so thats my proposal. i look forward to readers thoughts and comments. I will be reading the comments and will reply as time permits.