WASHINGTON – Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Tuesday called on President Donald Trump to shrink a total of four national monuments and change the way 10 others are managed, a sweeping overhaul of how protected areas are maintained in the United States.
Zinke's report comes a day after Trump signed two proclamations in Utah that downsized two massive national monuments there – Bears Ears by 85 percent and Grand Staircase-Escalante by 46 percent. The president had directed Zinke in April to review 27 national monuments established since 1996 under the Antiquities Act, which gives the president broad authority to safeguard federal lands and waters under threat.
[Trump shrinks 2 Utah national monuments, drawing praise and protests]
In addition to the Utah sites, Zinke supports cutting Nevada's Gold Butte and Oregon's Cascade-Siskiyou, though the exact reductions are still being determined. He also would revise the proclamations for those and the others to clarify that activities such as grazing, motorized vehicle use and commercial fishing should be allowed.
The additional monuments affected include Northeast Canyons and Seamounts in the Atlantic Ocean; both Rose Atoll and the Pacific Remote Islands in the Pacific Ocean; New Mexico's Organ Mountain-Desert Peaks and Rio Grande Del Norte; and Maine's Katahdin Woods and Waters.
"The Antiquities Act over time has done great things for our country, and it has protected some of our greatest treasures," he said in a call with reporters. But its power had been "abused," he said, with monument designations extending far beyond the objects they were designed to protect.
Some of the objects defined in past proclamations, he noted, were far too abstract: "Stars, biological diversity, remoteness, emptiness."
Zinke criticized the federal government's past action halting motorized vehicle traffic in Cascade-Siskiyou until a transportation plan could be finalized, arguing that it interfered with local cross-country ski operators' ability to maintain trails.
"It should have been the other way around," he said.
For several sites, Zinke recommended amending monuments' proclamation language to ensure that activities such as grazing, hunting and fishing can continue. While these practices often go on even after a presidential designation, Zinke said he wants to make that legality clear because ranchers have felt marginalized and fear they will face future restrictions.
In the case of New Mexico's national monuments, Zinke said, he listened to the state's two Democratic senators and others in deciding not to modify their boundaries. Still, he wanted "to make sure that the proclamation protects the long-standing grazing (in parts) of those monuments" and that management of Organ Mountain-Desert Peaks does not interfere with U.S. Customs and Border Control operations in the area.
Sen. Martin Heinrich wasn't buying the explanation. He blasted Zinke in a statement, saying the "report is based on hearsay and erroneous data" and that the secretary and Trump "have turned a deaf ear to the overwhelming consensus to protect New Mexico's conservation legacy."
The administration is already facing multiple lawsuits over the president's decision Monday to scale back both Bears Ears, a sacred tribal site the Barack Obama designated a year ago, and Grand Staircase-Escalante, a reservoir of prehistoric fossils that Bill Clinton established in 1996.
More litigation could be coming. Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum warned Zinke in a letter in July the state was "ready to take appropriate legal action" if Trump rescinds or reduces the size of Cascade-Siskiyou.
Interior received more than 2.5 million comments on the review, and they "overwhelmingly" said all of the monuments should remain unchanged, Zinke wrote in his report. But he attributed the extreme tilt to "a well-orchestrated national campaign organized by multiple groups."
"I don't yield to public pressure," Zinke said Tuesday. "Sound public policy is not based on threats of lawsuit, it's doing what's right."
The final document is almost identical to the draft Zinke submitted to the White House this summer, and much of the language is vague. For example, it appears open the door to commercial fishing in three marine monuments where this practice is either being phased out or is already banned. Yet the report calls for amending the sites' proclamations to allow regional councils "to make fishery-management decisions as authorized by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act."
"That's something that our members have argued for from the beginning," said Bob Varnasse, who serves as executive director for the industry group Saving Seafood. The act, he added, is broadly viewed as "one of the best laws in the world" in terms of sustainability.
But Tom Wathen, a vice president at The Pew Charitable Trusts, said in an email that commercial fishing within the marine monuments "would undermine the protection provided for these habitats and for the threatened whales, turtles, fish and seabirds that gather there."
Zinke also finalized his recommendations to create three new national monuments: at Kentucky's Camp Nelson, a Civil War training site for African-American soldiers; at Medgar Evers' home in Jackson, Mississippi; and at the Badger-Two Medicine area in his home state of Montana.
The secretary said he was "fairly confident" Trump would accept all of his recommendations, and he intends to brief him "multiple times" in coming weeks to get his sign-off. Zinke also rejected the idea that any of these alterations of existing monuments would amount to relinquishing control of federal land, describing such criticism as "nefarious, false and a lie."
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, commended Zinke on Tuesday for "actually listening to the people on the local level" and Trump for showing " some real courage against well-funded litigation machines."
Bishop and members of the Utah congressional delegation have introduced legislation that would create a new national park out of a portion of Grand Staircase-Escalante, to be called Escalante Canyons National Park.
"I know other people say this, but I'm telling you: Dude, there's nothing quite like Utah," said Rep. Chris Stewart, R, the bill's lead sponsor. "Utah is an extraordinary state when it comes to natural beauty. We want to share that with as many people as we can."
Zinke said "Interior would be supportive" of establishing a national park along the lines of Stewart's bill.
Sharon Buccino, who directs the land and wildlife program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group, said in a statement that "Zinke's report, like yesterday's outrageous and illegal actions by his boss, makes it crystal clear: The Trump administration is waging a war on our treasured national monuments – by land, sea and air."
Buccino called Stewart's bill "part and parcel of the same attack."
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The Washington Post's Dino Grandoni contributed to this report.