[csusbpeace] Joe Biden To Create His First National Monument
- From: "raccoon" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> ("bigraccoon1")
- To: "CSUSBPEACE@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <CSUSBPEACE@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2022 06:23:27 -0700
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-designates-first-national-monument_n_6324d6bee4b046aa023f5e5e
<https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-designates-first-national-monument_n_6324d6bee4b046aa023f5e5e>
Joe Biden To Create His First National Monument
The administration is creating Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument
and moving to ban new mining across 225,000 federal acres in Colorado.
Oct 12, 2022
President Joe Biden <https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/joe-biden> will
travel to Colorado on Wednesday to designate Camp Hale, a World War II-era
military training site, and the nearby Tenmile Range as America’s newest
national monument, bringing more than 50,000 federal acres under a new set of
protections that will bar new mining, drilling and other development.
Located in central Colorado, Camp Hale is where the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain
Division trained soldiers to ski and rock climb
<https://www.wilderness.org/articles/blog/colorados-camp-hale-recognizes-military-history-wild-setting>
in preparation for deployment to Italy during World War II. The Army
shuttered the site in 1965, and it has become a destination for hikers and
campers as part of the White River National Forest
<https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/camp-hale>.
Tenmile Range, which runs north to south between the resort towns of
Breckenridge and Copper Mountain, is home to more than a dozen high-elevation
peaks that served as a training ground for the 10th Mountain Division.
Biden will sign a proclamation establishing Camp Hale-Continental Divide
National Monument during a visit to the historic military site on Wednesday,
according to a White House official. The site will be managed by the U.S.
Forest Service and span nearly 54,000 acres — an area larger than Washington,
D.C.
Biden previously restored
<https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-restore-national-monuments-utah_n_615f4ba4e4b00b9c779cb3c4>
three national monuments that his predecessor dismantled, but this will be
his first designation as president.
The Biden administration will additionally take the first step on Wednesday
toward establishing a 20-year ban on all new drilling and mining activity
across an additional 225,000 acres in Thompson Divide, also located in the
White River National Forest.
The effort comes just weeks after Democratic leaders in Colorado began
lobbying
<https://www.huffpost.com/entry/colorado-public-lands-biden-monument-core-act_n_6308efd9e4b065bfc4aea13b>
Biden to use his executive authority to preserve Colorado lands amid
roadblocks to passing a conservation package through a divided Senate.
Camp Hale, the former home of the Army's 10th Mountain Division, will soon
become part of America's newest national monument.
Glen Martin via Getty Images
For years, conservation and environmental groups in Colorado have pushed for
more protections to ensure that the preservation of Camp Hale’s history and
outdoor recreation opportunities for the public take priority over extractive
interests like mining, timber felling and drilling for oil.
Nancy Kramer is president of the 10th Mountain Division Foundation, a
nonprofit dedicated to honoring the legacy of division soldiers. Her father,
William Robertson, was a medic in the 10th Mountain Division.
“This is going to be one of the more diverse monuments, and I think that’s
what makes it really significant,” she said, noting that the camp and the
surrounding area are rich in military and Indigenous history, ecologically
important landscapes and outdoor recreation opportunities.
“If you look at the 129 monuments, there’s a lot of similar landscapes and
stories,” she added. “That’s what’s cool about this — it’s different, and
there’s not many that get close to what this speaks to.”
The public supports the protection of wild lands by wide margins, according
to a July poll released by the Center for Western Priorities
<https://westernpriorities.org/winning-the-west/>. Some 90% of respondents
from Western states said national public lands, parks and wildlife were
important to them, with 81% saying those issues influence how they vote.
But polarization in Congress has made it more difficult to designate lands as
federally protected wilderness areas in recent years.
Members of Congress from Colorado have tried several times over more than a
decade to win greater protections for Camp Hale. A 2011 bill
<https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/senate-bill/279?r=34&s=1>
directing the Department of the Interior to study whether to turn it over to
the National Park Service went nowhere.
Over its last two sessions, Democratic members of the Colorado delegation
have pushed a bill, the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act, that
would create new wilderness areas in the state and turn the 30,000 acres
surrounding Camp Hale into the country’s first “National Historic Landmark.”
But without support from Republicans, the bill floundered. Rep. Lauren
Boebert (R-Colo.) opposed the measure, calling it a “land grab” championed
<https://boebert.house.gov/media/press-releases/senate-committee-blocks-colorado-land-grab-following-local-opposition>
by “leftists and extremists.”
Kramer got emotional talking about the long road to Wednesday’s monument
announcement.
“We’re thrilled and excited and so grateful for the recognition,” she said.
“This is a lot of years of work, and most of the veterans are gone now, and
they’ve always wanted to see it preserved. This is the time.”
Richard Over, a member of the 10th Mountain Division, trains at Camp Hale in
Colorado in the early 1940s for military duty in Alaska and Italy.
Helen H. Richardson via Getty Images
The Antiquities Act of 1906 gives the president broad authority to designate
national monuments on existing federal lands to protect unique landscapes and
cultural heritage. Biden’s actions Wednesday will effectively salvage key
portions of the deadlocked Colorado bill.
“In the end, voters don’t care about how land gets protected,” said Aaron
Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities. “They just want
to see it protected.”
Days after taking office, the Biden administration targeted an ambitious goal
of conserving
<https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/report-conserving-and-restoring-america-the-beautiful-2021.pdf>
at least 30% of American public lands by 2030. While administration
officials have yet to settle on a definition for what they mean by
“conserve,”
<https://www.noaa.gov/america-the-beautiful/america-beautiful-frequently-asked-questions#:~:text=What%20is%2030%20x%2030,lands%20and%20waters%20by%202030.>
advocates for wild lands generally view federally designated wilderness
areas as the gold standard.
Wilderness areas don’t allow motorized vehicles, mountain bikes, oil and gas
drilling or mineral extraction. They can, however, permit cattle and sheep
grazing.
The administration is under increasing pressure
<https://www.huffpost.com/entry/parks-coalition-national-monument-report_n_625df336e4b052d2bd64f314>
to establish new monuments — something Biden promised
<https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-national-monuments_n_5fa9808cc5b66009569d241f>
to do on the campaign trail. Nearly two years into his term, the
administration is finally starting to make good on that promise. Along with
Camp Hale, it appears to be eyeing several other sites for future designation.
Interior Department Secretary Deb Haaland visited Avi Kwa Ame, or Spirit
Mountain, in September — a site in southern Nevada that several Native
American tribes consider sacred.
A coalition of tribes and environmentalists have proposed a sweeping national
monument that would link the mountain to other protected lands. Large swaths
of contiguous land protect biodiversity more effectively than isolated chunks.
Haaland also visited the Castner Range — another proposed national monument —
outside El Paso, Texas, in March.
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