Proposed Laws Targets Century-Previous Presidential Authority to Defend Public Lands
Washington, D.C. – Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA), the main voice for North America’s public lands, waters, and wildlife, at the moment condemned a newly-introduced invoice that threatens essential conservation efforts beneath the guise of restoring authority that Congress already enjoys. The Ending Presidential Overreach on Public Lands Act, launched by Representatives Celeste Maloy (R-UT) and Mark Amodei (R-NV), seeks to strip the president of the authority granted beneath the Antiquities Act to guard public lands by way of nationwide monument designations. This effort undermines a regulation that has safeguarded a few of America’s most iconic landscapes, and related searching and fishing alternatives, for greater than a century. Kaden McArthur, Director of Coverage and Authorities Relations for BHA, issued the next assertion in response:
“Since signed into regulation by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, the Antiquities Act has been utilized by 9 Republican and 9 Democratic presidents to guard pure, historic, and scientific sources on our federal public lands. The flexibility for the president to designate nationwide monuments is extra needed than ever as gridlock in Congress and ideological opposition to conservation of public lands makes it more and more tough to cross laws to guard landscapes from encroaching improvement and different threats. Hunters, anglers, and the American public can be higher served if Congress labored to advance significant protections for our public lands and waters, somewhat than difficult the long-standing authority of the president to take action.”
The Antiquities Act is a essential software to determine nationwide monuments that preserve massive landscapes, safe important fish and wildlife habitat, and safeguard conventional searching and angling alternatives on public lands and waters. As early as 1908, the Antiquities Act was utilized by Roosevelt to designate greater than 800,000 acres of public land because the Grand Canyon Nationwide Monument to guard the area from mining claims.
BHA has persistently advocated for America’s nationwide monuments system and the considered use of the Antiquities Act to completely preserve necessary lands and waters. Central to BHA’s advocacy is making certain that monument designations adhere to particular rules, together with a domestically pushed and clear course of, science-based habitat administration, and the preservation of current searching and fishing alternatives. BHA and a consortium of teams and companies launched a report that outlines these rules and the way nationwide monuments can maintain necessary habitat and conventional searching and fishing entry. Learn Nationwide Monuments: A Looking and Fishing Perspective.
Backcountry Hunters & Anglers seeks to make sure North America’s out of doors heritage of searching and fishing in a pure setting, by way of training and work on behalf of untamed public lands, waters, and wildlife. To study extra about points necessary to BHA’s membership, and to grow to be a member at the moment, go to www.backcountryhunters.org/our_issues.
