Tag Archives: the Antiquities Act
Fishing on an ocean ‘antiquity’
The Seamen’s Bethel is a historic landmark: It’s included on the National Register of Historic Places, a list managed by the National Park Service. Some sites on that list are federally protected because they were designated National Monuments by a U.S. president under the Antiquities Act. The Seamen’s Bethel is not considered a National Monument. But bizarrely, President Barack Obama did declare 3.2 million nearby acres of ocean to be a National Monument, preventing fishermen from fishing there. That’s just one of many indignities dealt by the government to fishermen like Jimmy Kearney as they work to make a hard living at sea. The Antiquities Act “has been transformed into a power without any discernable limit to set aside vast and amorphous expanses of terrain above and below the sea,” the Chief Justice concluded. Why does it matter? Because the government is making life harder for commercial fishermen who work an already-grueling job. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 09:57
California’s offshore seamounts at risk of being closed
It has long been rumored that conservation groups were hoping to have the President use the Antiquities Act to designate Tanner and Cortes banks as National Marine Monuments. Finally, this rumor has been put on paper and its reach is far more than just the two areas mentioned above. The areas in grey below are those being proposed for Monument designation. Unlike the substantial public process that accompanies creation of a National Marine Sanctuary, designation of an area as a National Marine Monument is done outside the public eye – under the Antiquities Act. The Antiquities Act (54 USC §320301 et seq) empowers the President to, “in the President’s discretion, declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated on land owned or controlled by the Federal Government to be national monuments.” Read the rest here 17:09
