The House Natural Resources Committee is pushing back against a claim by Patagonia that President Trump "stole" land from Americans by moving to shrink two national monuments in Utah.
It's no secret that U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop dislikes The Antiquities Act and was thrilled to see President Trump move to dismantle the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah. So it shouldn't be a great surprise that the House Natural Resources Committee that he chairs has publicly attacked Patagonia, which opposes the president's move.
Last week Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke branded the outdoor wear company as a "liar" for running ads saying President Trump stole land from the American people by issuing a proclamation that cut 2 million acres, combined, from the two monuments. And on Friday the Natural Resources Committee used its Twitter feed to claim that "Patagonia is Lying To You."
"A corporate giant hijacking our public lands debate to sell more products to wealthy elitist urban dwellers from New York to San Francisco," the tweet added.
Perhaps this shouldn't be surprising in the brash, pushback, smack down political world the Trump administration has ushered in, but the tweet has raised more than a few eyebrows.
"When a federal government official publicly calls you a liar on an official social media account, without any due process whatsoever, the first thing you should do is call a lawyer. The second thing you should do is find out the name of the official who posted this tweet," wrote Walter Shaub, who formerly directed the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, in a tweet of his own.
"I don’t know if there’s any legal recourse, but I hope Patagonia has a law firm research the issue," he added. "The federal govt officially and publicly calling a company a liar for political reasons is a bizarre and dangerous departure from civic norms. It’s also decidedly anti-free market."
The matter raises the question about whether it's appropriate for a federal government entity to publicly attack a company. What will be interesting to see is whether it boosts sales for Patagonia, as President Trump's criticism of Nordstrom earlier this year did for that company.
Comments
Your short term memory forgot the Feds stealing land for Chinease Solar farm that a Democratic Senators son was a lawyer for...
I remember back around 1966 hearing Representative Sam Steiger (R-Arizona) accuse David R. Brower of being in it for the money. That's when Dave was leading the campaign against two dams that would have been built in the Grand Canyon. It was a novel accusation at the time. Except for Steiger, even the lawmakers who proposed the dams (Rep. Morris Udall leading) respected conservationists' role and recognized our right to present our views and our analysis of the issue.
Did I miss the for sale sign or did Trump give this land away? No, it's still government land so Zinke is correct in labeling Patagonia a liar. As far as being "bizarre and dangerous" I think that is true of Patagonia and all the other businesses that see fit to involve themselves in politics and risk alienating a good portion of their customers.
How many times do we have to go through this and explain ??? The land was not "returned to the state" by the administration. First of all, it remains federal land, under the jurisdiction of the BLM and Forest Service. Secondly, and more importantly, it was NEVER state land to begin with, so not only can it not be returned, it could not have been stolen, either.
The land in these monuments was federal before the monuments were designated. No private property or state lands were incorporated into the monuments.
In contrast to the 13 Original States, independent before they formed the United States, the lands in the West were FEDERAL before Utah and the other states even became states. Native Americans lived there first, obviously, but it was also bought from France, conquered and bought from Mexico through the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, treaty with Great Britain, and bought from Russia.
The Constitution gave Congress the right to make any and all laws and regulations regarding the territory of the United States. When many of the Western states were created, the states themselves did not want to be responsible for all the territory within their borders. They disclaimed any future right to the lands. That's actually in Utah's constitution. At the time of statehood, these were lands the state thought weren't productive, and it didn't want to be saddled with the cost of managing them. Even now, Utah wouldn't have the budget to manage them properly and would have to sell them off to private interests. Then the public would be certainly locked out.
It helps to know a little history before commenting.
Wild, I'm guessing the Devil's Advocate pitch would go something like this: If you owned 1.9 million acres, and someone took roughly 1 million acres away, said you still owned it, but that they were going to use it for cattle grazing or hunting or mining, and that you had to keep off that mining development for 40 years while it was strip mined and roads and railroad lines were cut into it, and then the company failed horribly to restore the land afterwards because of the arid, friable landscape, would you say your land was stolen?
I think the legal battle when this reaches court will be very interesting to watch.
i bought gift cards to Patagonia the day their statement came out. It might not be much, but I felt good.
I'm no urbanite, and I buy patagonia products because of their environmental stances and because they are quality. Anyone who can rile up Zinke will get my business even more. He is a piece of garbage. GOOO Patagucci!
Section 2 of the Utah State Constitution forever gives up any claim to all lands that had not been patented by any citizens of Utah at the time of statehood. Similar language is found in constitutions of all the other western states as well.
In addition, one of the bogus claims made by Zinke and drumpf and the Utah GOP is that declaration of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase made these lands inaccessible to the public. Totally false.