Terence Carr Due to the highly partisan state in which environmentalism currently exists in the United States, since a Republican majority has been elected to congress in 2014, anti-environmental legislation and policy has been expected, but it hasn’t yet been clear how this would begin. Recently, it looks like the congress has made one of their first anti-environmental moves in a bill proposed by Arkansas representative Don Young. The proposed bill would repeal the Antiquities Act, removing the president’s ability to preserve lands as national monuments or national parks. This is an interesting action for the congress to take because instead of attacking more recent environmental trends concerning regulation that could arguably inhibit economic performance, this is a direct attack on the oldest form of environmentalism, conservationism. |
These movements consist of individuals who believe that the federal government’s designation of lands for conservation is an infringement upon their personal freedoms and have mostly resulted in forms of civil disobedience such as in Southwestern Utah where a group of protesters rode their ATV’s on federal land designated for conservation in September 2014.
Although anti-environmental groups with this agenda do exist, this bill is interesting because it is an attack on a very old form of environmentalism that has been an established and mostly bipartisan force in American politics since the days of Thomas Jefferson. Conservationism has much less to do with global climate change or the science behind it than it has to do with Thomas Jefferson’s idea of the American spirit being found within nature and the Earth. All-in-all, this did not seem like a movement that would be threatened, considering that environmental legislation that involves regulating businesses such as the EPA have been around for a much shorter period of time, and are less established within American values.
Overall, if the proposed bill is passed and the Antiquities Act is repealed, this would represent a large blow to conservationism and any hopes it has of remaining a bipartisan issue. What remains to be seen is if the bill will receive the necessary votes that it needs to be passed. Although the current congress is decidedly controlled by Republicans and the Republican Party tends to favor anti-environmentalist legislation, it is not clear how much Republican congressmen stand to gain from voting for the bill. We are now nearly 40 years removed from the Sagebrush rebellion and although there have been smaller grassroots protests against the federal government’s jurisdiction over certain plots of land, there has not recently been one focusing event to sway public opinion in the anti-environmental direction. The bill is currently being reviewed by the House Committee on Natural Resources where it may or may not move on to the next stage towards becoming law.
References:
New Congress Begins Anti-Environment Attack With ‘No More National Parks’ Bill. (2015, January 16). Retrieved February 13, 2015, from http://thinkprogress.org/default/2015/01/16/3612702/
Razcizod, S. (n.d.). THE CLINTON NATIONAL MONUMENTS: PROTECTING ECOSYSTEMS WITH THE ANTIQUITIES ACT.
Sagebrush Rebellion. (n.d.). Retrieved February 13, 2015, from http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/PVCC/mbase/docs/sagebrush.html
Utah men involved in ATV protest face federal charges. (2014, September 18). Retrieved February 13, 2015, from http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nation-and-world/utah-men-involved-atv-protest-face-federal-charges
Antiquities Act. (n.d.). Retrieved February 13, 2015, from http://www.quazoo.com/q/Antiquities_Act