This is starting to effect my health ... just makes me sad to the bone.
Don't let it get to your "health",you need to be strong to fight the "evil empire"buckland said:This is starting to effect my health ... just makes me sad to the bone.
Yes. And the projection/hypocrisy/psychotic rhetoric that insists parks/monuments/wilderness are "locking out" citizens (not to mention one not to be named news corporation proclaiming that oil and gas production would do less harm than tourism) begs the question: will the citizens who own the land be allowed to do so much as walk a dog on it when it is covered with oil and gas wells?Lighthawk said:There's not nice way to say this:
It's a GOP land grab that is taking away public land and turning it into private land sold for pennies on the dollar.
I know WTW doesn't like politics, but when ONE PARTY continues to attack our public lands, it would be foolish to ignore it.
Cayuse said:I went through the "Boycott Utah" stage when some of this first came about but I have friends there who rely on tourist revenues and after talking to them I figured out an alternative that works for me : I contribute more to SUWA, Friends of Cedar Breaks, GSENM Partners and other groups than I do to the state of Utah in the way of sales and fuel taxes. I know it isn't perfect but it helps me to feel better when I have to stop through someplace in Bluff, Kanab, Moab and such (as for Blanding, I won't spend money there regardless).
Exactly. The people of Utah continue to elect these clowns and they are the only ones who can change that.rando said:I agree with you on donating to SUWA, NRDC and NPCA, all of which I am a member off. My logic with the boycott is that since I don't vote in UT, UT politicians don't really care what I think. But if I can get a few more utwegians to speak up about how their policies are hurting their bottom lines, maybe, just maybe they will listen.
I recently read an article about the ladies who run the Hell’s Backbone Grill in Boulder, UT. They mentioned how many employment opportunities tourism offered to the folks who live in Southern Utah, saying their employees made roughly twice minimum wage. On the Hell’s Backbone Grill web site there’s a long list of nonprofit organizations they support, including some mentioned above. Here’s a link to their site. http://hellsbackbonegrill.com/about/Cayuse said:I went through the "Boycott Utah" stage when some of this first came about but I have friends there who rely on tourist revenues and after talking to them I figured out an alternative that works for me : I contribute more to SUWA, Friends of Cedar Breaks, GSENM Partners and other groups than I do to the state of Utah in the way of sales and fuel taxes. I know it isn't perfect but it helps me to feel better when I have to stop through someplace in Bluff, Kanab, Moab and such (as for Blanding, I won't spend money there regardless).
I think you also need to add:PaulT said:I see the issue coming down to two positions:
1. Nothing in the Antiquities Act of 1906 allow a successor president to revoke a predecessor's National Monument declaration.
2. The National Monument declaration is not being revoked. It is being reduced in size to comply with the Act's requirement to be as small as possible to preserve the object of scientific or historic importance.
This may come down to specifying the object(s) being preserved and what is required to preserve them.
As to the lawsuits, I suspect that this administration will not allow the "sue and settle" approach of some previous administrations.
For those with a hair trigger: Notice that this is to raise points of discussion rather than ad hominem attacks on the author.
Paul
I, for one, appreciate this approach to analysis of the situation, and I am only interested in points of discussion as opposed to flames.PaulT said:I see the issue coming down to two positions:
1. Nothing in the Antiquities Act of 1906 allow a successor president to revoke a predecessor's National Monument declaration.
2. The National Monument declaration is not being revoked. It is being reduced in size to comply with the Act's requirement to be as small as possible to preserve the object of scientific or historic importance.
This may come down to specifying the object(s) being preserved and what is required to preserve them.
As to the lawsuits, I suspect that this administration will not allow the "sue and settle" approach of some previous administrations.
For those with a hair trigger: Notice that this is to raise points of discussion rather than ad hominem attacks on the author.
Paul
So, what happens IF the government changes/changes its mind? Does it all flip back/forth again?Foy said:Thanks so much for the insight, Smoke. It stands to reason that there are (probably) thousands of pages of Regulations promulgated under the statute as well as thousands of pages of ancillary statutes and their own thousands of pages of regulations. The Internal Revenue Code, including the Regulations, with which I toil away under every day, started off with simple statutory language in 1913, just 7 years after the Antiquities Act was enacted, and look how voluminous it is today!.
I'd say you also confirmed that declaration of what property or asset should be preserved is the subject of much of the follow-on statutory and regulatory processes. Furthermore, we may assume that the initial boundaries of the two NMs now proposed for reduction in size had already been vetted in extremis for compliance with the statutes and regs. Lastly, it seems we may assume the effort to reduce the size faces a serious uphill battle if all of the i's were dotted and the t's crossed in the Executive Order creating or expanding them. Seems like it would take a reversal of position/opinion by the Dept of Interior itself to successfully argue that some sort of error or mis-statement was present initially. I can't envision legions of DOI managers and directors all saying "Never mind--we got it wrong" at this point, can you?
Thanks again.
Foy
ok, that was a long read... man, I know more about american politics than ever. Not sure how I feel about that. I just wish for my kids and grandkids to be able to enjoy nature. With ever more people on the planet, it seems we should be working harder to preserve nature wherever we can. Sigh...buckland said:I think it is important to look at the man who is in charge of the OUR Interior ... I am beginning to not like what I am learning:
The last two paragraphs, seem to say what I feel.
https://www.outsideonline.com/2266216/man-flies-his-own-flag