A monumental designation

A stroke of the president’s pen on Friday appeared to put some Nevadans in danger of having a stroke.

The issue? The designation of 704,000 acres as the brand-new Basin and Range National Monument, forever protected from development, under the Antiquities Act. The law allows the president to declare monuments for historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest on federal land.

But for some drama queens, it was as if President Barack Obama flew to Nevada and punched a bald eagle in the face while Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid held it down.

First, we should keep in mind that the president is authorized to use the Antiquities Act to create monuments, and he’s certainly not the first chief executive of either party to do so. The power dates to the days of President Teddy Roosevelt and has resulted in the preservation of places such as Devils Tower, Wyo., the Petrified Forest in Arizona, the Gila Cliff Dwellings in New Mexico, Glacier Bay in Alaska, the Muir Woods in California and a little place you may have heard of called the Grand Canyon.

Second, we should keep in mind that the Basin and Range National Monument meets the criteria: There are petroglyphs and rock art in the area, some of which is 4,000 years old. That’s a couple thousand years before the birth of Christ. Not only that, but artist Michael Heizer’s City sculpture, the product of nearly 50 years of work that’s as big as The Mall in Washington, D.C., is located in the new monument as well.

Third, the designation only prevents certain development activities, including mining, and energy projects, including clean energy development such as solar power. (A potential railroad route for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository now cannot be built on the land, either.) But grazing is still allowed, so relax, Obama and Reid haters: Cliven Bundy could theoretically herd his cattle there for some illegal grazing!

“My fixation is on the desert where I was raised,” said Reid, who was instrumental in persuading Obama to signed the monument designation. “We haven’t done enough to protect the desert. And in Nevada, we’re running out of places to protect.”

During his 30-year career in Congress, Reid has helped designate nearly 5 million acres of preserved lands off limits to development in Nevada, according to the Washington Post.

“I’m happy it’s being done,” said Reid. “There’s nothing that’s more representative of Nevada that I’ve ever done.”

But to hear some tell it, Reid put on a bandanna and robbed an old-timey stagecoach with his trusty Winchester Model 1873.

“It’s disgusting. It’s loathsome. It’s illegal. It’s unfair,” said Lincoln County Commissioner Kevin Phillips, according to a Review-Journal story by Steve Tetreault and Henry Brean. “We feel like we’re not citizens.”

“This is locking people out of the land,” said Rep. Cresent Hardy. His colleague Rep. Mark Amodei dubbed the monument the “Hairy Berry National Monument” and decried the lack of public input into the designation. Hardy and Amodei said local authorities should have more say in designating public monuments.

Even Gov. Brian Sandoval said he “would have preferred a more collaborative process when making such an important designation.”

But Reid dismissed the critics, saying there was “not a chance in hell” that Congress would have approved the designation through the legislative process. “This is extremely significant because of Republicans blocking everything having to do with the environment,” he said.

Plus, it’s not as if the excitable Commissioner Phillips has a point. What Obama did is not illegal. It’s just as legal, and just as legitimate, as withdrawing the land through congressionally approved legislation.

And bottom line: Preserving the land from development was the right thing to do. History will bear that out, long after the wails of the disaffected have ceased to echo through the desert canyons of Nevada’s newest monument.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist who blogs at SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at 702-387-5276 or SSebelius@reviewjournal.com.