Congress Challenges President On National Parks
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation that restricts the president's ability to establish national monuments and parks. It faces an uphill battle if it is to become law.
But conservationists are concerned the House bill sends the wrong message, as a political battle over drilling in national parks is taking place.
Big Bend National Park in West Texas is 1,800 miles away from the U.S. Capitol.
But a recent vote there has conservationists Big Bend concerned. At issue is the Antiquities Act, which gives the president authority to protect “objects of historic or scientific interest.”
In 1908, President Teddy Roosevelt used the law to establish what is today’s Grand Canyon National Park.
“When it has been used, it’s been used remarkably effectively," said Roosevelt’s great-grandson, Ted Roosevelt.
Since its creation, eight Democratic and eight Republican president have used the Antiquities Act.
“It would be a tragedy, in my opinion, to see it stripped slowly-but-surely and die a slow death, given the benefit the country’s had from it," Roosevelt told the Fronteras Desk from New York.
Critics charge the legislation is a Republican snub of President Barack Obama. Since 2011, he has used the Act 10 times to create national monuments, including two in New Mexico and California.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), says in a statement he wants to end "abuse by some presidents" who aim to limit activities on lands.
As the House was crafting its bill, Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas) expressed dismay, saying energy reserves can't be tapped because they're inside national parks.
This all comes after a decade of rising graffiti, theft and vandalism at Big Bend and at parks across the Southwest such as Joshua Tree in California and Saguaro in Arizona.
“These go back at least 3,000 or 4,000 years," said National Park Service archaeologist Tom Alex as he checked petroglyphs, lines drawn by the ancients into rock in this epic landscape of desert and mountains hugging the Mexican border.
“We’ve had some graffiti here just in the last two weeks. I think America’s a young country, having traveled in Europe where you walk into a cathedral that’s 800 years old. And you realize what it took to build that," Alex said. "And the fact that there’s just not the sensitivity, the ingrained knowledge in our society that you see in a lot of the rest of the world.”
Alex enters a natural shelter with clear evidence of human habitation. He points to ethereal black lines in the rock.
“You can see this represents childbirth. This is an adult with a child between its legs,” he said.
Alex mentions that he regularly meets with 11 Native American tribes who see the sacred in this protected land.
“Considering it that way, you think about walking into a spot like this, it’s like walking into a cathedral. And would you go up to the altar in the cathedral and write your name all over it? Or would you rip off the candlesticks, candelabra, the cloths that cover that altar? Would you steal that stuff and walk away?" he asked rhetorically.
Alex is the first to say he's an archaeologist and not a politician.
But he believes the move by the House and rising vandalism both send the same message, that conservation isn’t the priority it once was.
