Obama's National Monuments

I heard it reported this morning that Utah's Governor Herbert is heading off to Washington D.C. this weekend so that he might have a chat with officials at the Department of the Interior. It seems that it was accidentally leaked that the Department of the Interior was considering making two places in the state of Utah into national monuments, the San Rafael Swell and Cedar Mesa. Further, this was not disclosed to Utah's governor, senators, or any elected officials from the state. In fact, it would seem the plan is to make fourteen different places throughout the west into national monuments.

Why does this matter? Well, when the federal government declares an area as a national monument, that area must be kept pristine. It cannot be developed in any way whatsoever in perpetuity. It cannot even be used for grazing of animals. And it certainly cannot have any natural resources contained therein to be exploited. Lastly, since these areas are to remain pristine and untouched by man, they lose any potential for taxation for use of these lands by their respective states.

What do these fourteen areas under consideration have in common? Well it would seem that they all have a very high potential for large deposits of oil, coal, and natural gas smack dab in the middle of each area that President Obama's Department of the Interior wishes to make into national monuments.

Making the designation of these areas as national monuments was not something that was discussed with the various governors of the states where these future monuments were being proposed. This is not something that our elected representatives in congress had proposed legislation to do. This is something that Obama was considering implementing via executive order.

The last time that such a dastardly and nefarious act was committed regarding the state of Utah, President William Jefferson Clinton was the perpetrator in chief. You see, there is this very beautiful area in southern Utah that is called the Grand Escalante Staircase. One of its features is the fact that it has one of the two largest deposits of low-sulfur clean burning coal found thus far in the entire world. The other large deposit exists in Indonesia.

Well, if you will recall from the good ol' days of the Clinton administration and the uproar caused by his illegal campaign fund raising, you might recall that a foreign national by the name of James Riatti made some rather sizable illegal contributions to the Clinton campaign. While accepting such monies from a foreign national is itself illegal, it would seem that there was more to this. You see, Mr. Riatti was from Indonesia and had ties to that one other large deposit of clean coal. Somehow after having received this contribution, President Clinton saw fit to make the Grand Escalante Staircase a national monument, thereby ensuring that this huge deposit of coal lying beneath it would never be tapped. Of course this makes the Indonesian coal deposit all that much more valuable.

Now I am not for the wanton destruction of all of the beautiful places God has created in this country. I am not suggesting that we strip mine every deposit of coal that we find; however, there are definitely technological ways to extract the resources we need without despoiling the beauty of some of these areas that our President would declare off limits. Which begs the question: Why would Obama make it so that we cannot utilize our own natural resources so that we might become less dependent upon foreign sources of energy? Is that not what he claims that he wants? His actions surely don't show it.

It has been reported that Governor Herbert is furious over the Obama administration's Department of the Interior attempting to enact this status over Utah state lands by federal fiat, especially without his knowledge thereof. He intends to make his displeasure known and do what can be done to ensure this does not come to pass.

All I can say is give 'em both barrels, Governor! Knowing the tenacity of Governor Herbert, I suspect when he is finished in Washington D.C., they wont' know whether they are snake bit or powder burnt, and hopefully will have learned not to poke the bear way out here in the west anymore. Bears don't like being poked, Mister President!