Legislation currently pending in the U.S. Senate would, if allowed to become law, gut the Antiquities Act that so many presidents have used to preserve and protect valuable landscapes and historical settings, according to the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees.
The measure is being considered as an amendment to the Farm Bill on the Senate floor and should be opposed by anyone who cares about the special places that are part of the National Park System, according to the Park Service retirees.
The bill's language would gut the Antiquities Act, which was used by past presidents to set aside places such as Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Olympic, Carlsbad Caverns and Acadia national parks.
“Some of this nation’s most loved parks were first set aside and protected as national monuments and were later legislated by the Congress into national parks," said Maureen Finnerty, chair of the Coalition's Executive Council. "The modification to the Antiquities Act would require that any presidential proclamation be approved by the governor and the legislature in the state in which the potential monument would be established. Such a requirement would essentially render the Antiquities Act meaningless as such accord rarely exists.
"Moreover, the president can only employ the provisions of the Act on lands already owned by the people of the United States. It cannot be used on state or privately-owned lands," she added.
Additionally, the group says, H.R. 4089 could open up many areas of the National Park System to hunting, trapping, and recreational shooting. Most national park sites are closed to such activities in the interests of public safety, visitor enjoyment and resource protection. The House defeated an amendment to the bill that would have specifically excluded all the 397 units of the National Park System from these activities, which are already legal and appropriate on millions of acres of other public lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.
“NPS has long governed units of the National Park System based on the principle that hunting, trapping, collecting specimens and other uses that extract natural resources from park area ecosystems are not allowed, unless Congress has clearly authorized such activities," said former Glacier Bay National Park Superintendent Cherry Payne, a member of the Coalition's Executive Council. "This longstanding principle has been confirmed by the courts.
"H.R 4089 would eliminate this principle because it would recognize that hunting, trapping, fishing and collecting are to be affirmatively supported and facilitated on all federal lands," she added. "As a result, H.R. 4089 would stand NPS management policy on its head, creating a presumption that consumptive uses are the norm, and must be allowed unless expressly prohibited.”
Comments
LOL - The commerce clause was written to block states from treating trade differently i.e. having a higher tariff for mechandise coming in from one state vs another. It had nothing to due with regulating business or education.
And yet the commerce clause has been successfully applied thoughout history (by conservatives and progressives) to defend the consitutionality of a number of laws that could never have been anticipated at the time of its inception.
The founders could not have possibly anticipated every new concept in the years in America's future. We should be looking at what the constitution means not what it actually says.
What do you mean by "means"? How is that different from what it "actually says"?
Examples would be helpful but if anyone used the commerce clause to defend the Dept of Education or Dept of Energy - they weren't "conservatives" They might be Republicans, but that aren't conservatives.
Heck - the commerce clause was used to prevent a land owner from growing wheat on his property for his own consumption. Do you think that was an appropriate use of the commerce clause? Do think the Founding Fathers "meant" that?
What do you mean by "means"? How is that different from what it "actually says"?
What he means is the Constitution means what ever the Progressives want it to mean. The irony is that the concept of a "living Constitution" is the antithesis of what the Constitution was all about. The Constitution was meant to establish precise limits to the role of government. With the progressives' broad interpretation of the commerce clause and (other clauses), there might as well have been no Constitution written at all as there are no limits on what can be regulated.
The Constitution has a method to be altered - Article V. The progressives know however, that in most incidences, they would not be able to meet that hurdle. Therefore they use backdoor methods to circumvent the Constitution and put us on the road to ruin. And both Republicans and Democrats have been willing participants.
As the last 40 years of textual studies makes abundantly clear, it's notoriously difficult--even dangerous--to historicize "intention," not to mention the speculation occasioned by that strategy of reading the Constitution (or any other text).
But the "limits" can never be precise because langauge itself isn't. This is why we talk about interpretation of the Consitution. It's why there is a Supreme Court.
That is, of course, nonsense. There are different strategies of interpretation, which holds true for the reading of any text. This fact gets blurred by ideological caricatures of the opposition's strategy of reading.