Take Action: Congress Fast-Tracking Bill to Undermine Antiquities Act
Posted: 10/11/2017
By: Thomas O'Keefe
This week, Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) introduced a bill to effectively eliminate the Antiquities Act
as a core conservation tool for landscapes that include many rivers important to our community
(Learn
More). Over more than a century, the Antiquities Act has served as the mechanism to protect
some of our country’s most iconic paddling destinations that include the Colorado River
through Grand Canyon (AZ), Black Canyon of the Gunnison (CO), Brown’s Canyon of the
Arkansas River (CO), San Juan River through Bears Ears National Monument (UT), Middle Fork Tule
in Giant Sequoia (CA), Green and Yampa River in Dinosaur National Monument (UT), and East Branch
Penobscot in Katahdin Woods and Waters (ME).
The bill is being taken up by the House Natural Resources Committee today and would end the
availability of the Antiquities Act as a meaningful conservation tool in the future. It would
also give the President new power to undo existing protections on public lands. Among its
provisions, the deceptively named “National Monument Creation and Protection Act”
would:
• Place new limits on the objects that could be protected, drastically curtailing the
Act’s ability to protect landscapes we value for recreation;
• Give county elected officials and others veto authority over decisions concerning national
public lands;
• Lock in place potentially incompatible uses of protected areas;
• Give adjacent private property owners veto power over land management decisions on public
lands; and
• Give the President new authority to undo existing protections.
This bill is consistent with a disturbing trend of anti-public lands legislation, aimed at
transferring control over national public lands to small, nonpublic constituencies (Learn More).
Please take a moment today to write your Representative and share your thoughts on this
legislation that would severely limit an important conservation tool we have used to protect
rivers. We have provided a template to make this quick and easy.
Thomas O'Keefe
3537 NE 87th St.
Seattle, WA 98115
E-mail: okeefe@americanwhitewater.org
Phone: 425-417-9012
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