The long-running push by politicians in Washington D.C. to privatize public lands and scale back national monuments is now coming to head, as a sympathetic White House starts to endorse and implement anti-public lands efforts that could lead to the irresponsible development and eventual elimination of the Canyons of the Ancients in Colorado.
As the White House and Department of the Interior continue to shrink, modify or undermine protections for public lands and national monuments, Congressman Scott Tipton could be a deciding vote in whether Colorado’s Canyons of the Ancients stays protected or is opened up to industry.
President Donald Trump has already eliminated protections for millions of acres of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah. Now Congress is considering legislation to codify that decision (H.R. 4532) and to broaden the powers of the executive branch of government to lift protections for even more acres of public land with even less accountability (H.R. 3990).
Congressman Tipton sits on the House Natural Resources Committee, and accordingly has the opportunity to stop legislation that threatens Colorado’s public lands and national monuments — including Canyons of the Ancients — from making its way onto the House floor, if he indeed chooses to do so. His constituents certainly want him to: A January poll by the Global Strategy Group found that Rep. Tipton’s constituents are opposed to President Trump’s recent anti-public lands actions, by a 19 point margin, including 52 percent who are “strongly opposed.”
Rep. Tipton’s track record on public lands and national monuments — including a committeev ote in favor of H.R. 3990, which would weaken the executive branch’s ability to designate national monuments — suggests that he could ultimately vote in favor of scaling back protections for public lands across the American West, including in Colorado.
In July 2016, Rep. Tipton voted to block the president from using the Antiquities Act to designate new national monuments. He also voted for an amendment to block the presidential declaration of new national monuments in certain counties of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon and Utah. Notably, Rep. Tipton was silent on the administration’s drastic reduction of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
Coloradans, who Rep. Tipton represents, want and expect public lands to maintain public access, provide world-class recreation and tourism opportunities that support businesses and jobs, support healthy, thriving communities and be protected for the next generation – a mix only possible when our government and industry strikes the right balance between energy development and conservation.
Colorado’s public lands are supposed to be managed for multiple uses, including outdoor recreation, which generates $28 billion in consumer spending every year and supports 229,000 jobs. Yet the oil and gas industry has the system rigged in its favor, and under the Trump Administration, development is being prioritized above every other use of our public lands, including outdoor recreation.
This Administration’s efforts to eliminate common sense protections for hiking trails, big game herds and drinking water, in the misguided pursuit of “energy dominance,” is a grave threat to Colorado’s public lands, economy and natural heritage.
Any additional votes by Rep. Tipton for the anti-public lands bills currently under consideration in Congress would be a vote to upend that balance. The congressman should listen to his constituents and pledge to protect Colorado’s — and the West’s — beautiful public lands from further development and mining, so that his children and grandchildren can hunt, fish and hike on the same lands that he has been able to.
Chris Saeger is the Executive Director of the Western Values Project, a Montana-based watchdog group taking a government accountability approach to public lands issues.
