
Trump Takes Aim at Western Monuments That May Hold Oil Riches - jtraffic
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-10/trump-takes-aim-at-western-monuments-that-may-hold-oil-riches
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nateberkopec
I live very close to one of the National Monuments being discussed (Rio Grande
Del Norte). It's a big tourist draw, not to mention it's wildlife and
historical significance. Letting oil companies potentially put that in
jeopardy to extract resources is really just a wealth transfer, putting the
citizens at risk for the benefit of a few big oil companies.

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FullMtlAlcoholc
It's not only wealth transfer, it's potential wealth destruction.

I only had a chance to spend a day in the area as I was driving through. This
sounds cliché, but it's one of those places that makes you think. The immense
beauty captured my full attention and for the rest of the drive, I turned my
cell phone and radio off and sat in awe in a sort of mindless medication.
Places like this truly are priceless, especially for city folk like. myself
overstimulated by modern society.

It's unfortunate that some people look at wilderness only for what value can
be extracted out of the land. It's not only wealth transfer, it's potential
net wealth destruction.

Slightly off topic, but Trump recentl made a speech where he said that no
one's religious rights will ever be violated again in this country. It
reminded me of the Native American people trying to prevent the construction
of the Dakota Access pipeline because it crosses through their waterways and
some of their sacred lands. I know it's politics and what he said was code for
allowing Christian organizations to discriminate against LGBT individuals and
to also exclude birth control from their health care benefits, but it must be
so disheartening to hear something a President say that and know that it
doesn't apply to your religion, like he doesn't even acknowledge that you
exist.

It's just depressing knowing that, if we incentivized correctly, our energy
issues with high density fuels could be solved forever and forms of energy
that require wasteful, polluting extractive and refining techniques will no
longer externalize their costs

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wordupmaking
Basically: Destroying the wealth everybody can have for free, like beauty,
truth and simple contentment, to sell cheap thrills that never quite satisfy.
I don't care how cliché that _sounds_ , I'm tired of how well that cliché
holds up in the reality I see.

And yes, I also think that it's ultimately a net negative, I'm not even sure
the people who get wealthier and more powerful actually get wealthier and more
powerful. Their thrills don't seem to last either, they kind of seem to get
smaller, and apart from the destruction of the world around us basically
everybody of us engages in and suffers from, some of them them also have a
vastly bigger inner gulf to cross. I.e. to enjoy a sunset someone with a clean
conscience only has to have the time and the sunset, but people with corpses
in the basement still have to dig out from under those corpses and then get up
the stairs and out the front door. There's a lot of shrillness these days, and
I think exactly for that reason; people with mouths full of dirt screaming
about how they wouldn't want to see a sunset anyway, how only losers would
enjoy those more than the cold stone they're stuck under. A whole lot of
posing going on.

FWIW, I don't think any of us are exempt, I surely am not. Yeah I didn't start
a war of aggression yet, and so on, but I hurt others for various dumb
reasons, and often failed to even try to make up for it for even dumber or no
reasons. It's a matter of degree though, and I would not want to swap with
people in even deeper shit.

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orasis
I'm sitting in my camper right now in the middle of Utah. Fuck these East
coast pricks that have never even seen this land.

~~~
TYPE_FASTER
It's the local reps who are pushing this: "Representative Rob Bishop, a
Republican from Utah who heads the House Natural Resources Committee, has
focused his ire on Bears Ears"

I'm starting to think the tide has turned on people's desire to give land back
to the states (see Chaffetz). Enough people have moved to Utah/Colorado for
the outdoors that it's not going to be easy for the local establishment to
sell off the land at a discount to their donors.

At least in the opinion of this east coaster...

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niftich
Maps of the Bears Ears National Monument can be seen here [1][2], to give an
idea as to what's being talked about.

It includes the area between the current eastern boundary of Canyonlands NP
"below the rim" of the mesas like Hatch Point Mesa and Harts Point Mesa.

In this 2014 article from Moab Sun News [3], it is mentioned that oil and gas
surveys are being done in Harts Point (up on the mesa; outside of Bears Ears
NM and not visible from "below the rim"); as well as in Lockhart Basin, the
area sandwiched between the Mesa and Canyonlands (and thus protected by the
new Bears Ears National Monument).

A quote from the article:

 _Walt Dabney, Moab resident, and retired superintendent of Canyonlands
National Park (CNP), said that he is "very concerned," about any possible
development taking place below the rim in the Canyonlands Basin. While
superintendent of CNP, he made a formal objection to the BLM, saying that
there shouldn't be any leases down in the basin because of the, "certainty of
compromising the national park qualities of Canyonlands National Park."

"When you stand on the rim, there is an assumption by anyone who looks into
that basin, that they are looking into the park. "What they are really looking
at is an illogical, political compromise that resulted in protecting only a
portion of the basin. Any development placed in there will significantly
diminish the quality of the park."_

On the map, this is the northwesternmost protrusion of Bears Ears NM; a
relatively small area. It includes significant portions of land further south
(beyond the southern boundary of Canyonlands NP), including the northern rim
of Goosenecks, all of the Valley of the Gods, the Moki Dugway, the roads
leading to Natural Bridges and Hite Crossing, all of the Dark Canyon
Wilderness, half of the Abajo Mountains, and the like, forming a continuous
protected area from the existing patchwork of protected land and adjacent BLM-
or-private land that looks visually identical yet hasn't enjoyed the same
protections. And remarkably, it does so in a way to protect viewsheds.

[1]
[http://www.grandcanyontrust.org/sites/default/files/maps/res...](http://www.grandcanyontrust.org/sites/default/files/maps/resources/uw_BearsEars_Proclamation_8.5x11.pdf)
[2] [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Bears-
ea...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Bears-ears-map.pdf)
[3]
[http://www.moabsunnews.com/news/article_7b85d6f0-3e77-11e4-a...](http://www.moabsunnews.com/news/article_7b85d6f0-3e77-11e4-aac7-001a4bcf6878.html)

