Over the last 112 years, there has been an issue that every president has agreed on. They shared the idea that despite the rapid speed of innovation and the spread of people across the country, it's important that our natural landmarks are preserved. Since Teddy Roosevelt first enacted the order, the American Antiquities Act of 1906 guaranteed that certain land would remain undeveloped.
This established national parks and is the reason that we don't see houses and strip malls littering American staples, like the Grand Canyon and Yosemite. It's why even though some of the highest deposits of oil in the country are below national parks, the reserves remained untouched. Since then, millions of people from all over the globe flock to these parks every year, and get to enjoy the beauty that these public lands offer.
In a move that isn't the least bit shocking in hindsight, the White House has just announced that they will be scaling back two national monuments in Utah by almost two million acres. This unprecedented downsizing was done for one reason: drilling. The president claims that this is a move intended to put the power back into the people's hands, yet his justifications for downsizing are counterintuitive and turn public land into purchasable acreage.
Bears Ears, a feature in one of the parks, is viewed as a sacred and historic landmark and is a site rich in pre-European history. Despite claims that this is a move for the people, there has been a lot of backlashes. Locals are worried this will destroy the tourism industry of their state, environmentalists fear the archaeological and ecological impact, and five of the native tribes who originally resided on the land sued him for encroaching on sacred land. These are all people who the president claimed he was benefiting in this speech about the scaling back of the parks.
It almost feels like a sick joke that the president is destroying a national park to get more oil, which will ultimately damage the planet in its own right. The president released a statement, saying that "Public lands will once again be for public use," but this will actually free up the land to be utilized by industry rather than used by the public. What this really means is it now belongs to oil companies, as they now can lease the land and drill as they see fit.
See the issue here?
This isn't being enacted to put the power back in the people's hands, it's a strictly financial decision made by a corrupt businessman. Whats worse is how easily it was approved by Congress. This means that this isn't the first time that we will see this kind of scaling back, and we may soon lose a very important piece of what makes this country truly magnificent.
