to convince President Joe Biden to establish nearly 400,000 acres of canyonland surrounding the Dolores River as a new national monument.
National monuments have become a political lightning rod in recent years, in no small part due to former President Donald Trump’sof two protected sites in Utah in 2017. Along with reversing Trump’s rollbacks, Biden has used the Antiquities Act to create or expand several monuments since taking office.
Stout joins members of Congress, tribal leaders and community advocates at a"Monumental Call for Action" rally outside the U.S. Capitol in April to urge the Biden administration to expand, designate and protect national monuments.The effort has been met with fierce opposition in the small communities closest to the proposed boundary, a region known as the West End.
“I want to put a multi-state pact of opposition together and let the people in Washington, D.C., and Congress know that we need to repeal the Antiquities Act of 1906,” he said at a community meeting in April. “It needs to be looked at by Congress or by the Supreme Court. The only way to stop the federal government from stealing your public land is to repeal the Antiquities Act of 1906.
Boebert also gave a shoutout to Pond, her constituent, for raising awareness about the issue before condemning the Biden administration’s 30x30 initiative as a “land and water grab” championed by radical environmentalists.
For people like Pond, promises about sustained access for grazing, mining and recreation ring hollow. Pond noted that it would ultimately be up to federal agencies to decide how the land is managed following a monument designation, and he fears it would ultimately lead to greater restrictions over time.
“He insists that we can trust him because he’s kind enough to give us his word and explain that he wants to do this with us, not to us,” Benson said, referring to Braden. “It gives me pause. I’m not sure I’ve heard a term more caustic with veiled threat. It’s exactly what you say to a person when you’re trying to get them to believe that what you want to do to them is for their benefit, and you don’t really care about them, you just need them to say ‘yes’ so you can get what you want.