By Tom Kenworthy, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

President Obama on Tuesday will for the first time exercise his broad land conservation authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act by naming a Civil War-era military fort in Virginia a national monument.

The designation of Fort Monroe will make history in several ways: honoring the location of a Civil War landmark that served as a haven for African Americans, as well as the Union general who sheltered them; creating the first national monument in Virginia; and making President Obama the latest in a long line of presidents from both parties who have embraced the Antiquities Act as a means to protect treasured American landscapes and historical places for future generations to enjoy. As Stephanie Meeks, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, said:

The action taken by President Obama will ensure that this important event in American history will get the recognition it deserves. Fort Monroe stands as a testament to the personal courage of thousands of Americans, including the enslaved people who bravely took control of their destinies there during the Civil War, as well as the courage of the Union general who ensured their safety. Together, their heroic actions heralded the beginning of the end of slavery in America.

The president is expected to make the formal announcement on Tuesday at 2 p.m. at the White House, capping an effort that drew broad support among Virginia officials and local residents in the Hampton Roads area at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The designation will protect several hundreds of acres which will be managed by the National Park Service.

Established in the early 19th Century, Fort Monroe was a strategic military base, serving most recently as a training center for the U.S. Army. But it earned its place in American history more broadly during the Civil War, when three African American slaves escaped the Confederate Army and fled to Fort Monroe. They were seized as “contraband of war” by the Union Army commander, which kept them from being returned to their owners. More than a half million African Americans later followed the lead of the three slaves, finding freedom in the contraband camp near Hampton Roads and becoming a self-contained African American city.

The recognition of this little known but vital piece of American history comes as House Republicans are pushing several pieces of legislation that would limit or end the presidential authority to designate national monuments. Almost every president has used the authority since Theodore Roosevelt, including President George W. Bush.

As noted by Center for American Progress president and CEO John Podesta, the ability of presidents to use the Antiquities Act is a vital authority that ensures our long tradition of protecting public lands and helps “revitalize and strengthen local communities.”

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), a lawmaker leading efforts to privatize and mine public lands across the West, spoke last week at the Western Republican Leadership Conference in Las Vegas. ThinkProgress caught up with Bishop after his speech.

After he told us that national parks are unconstitutional, we asked about Republican efforts to develop the certain national parks for mineral extraction. Bishop initially laughed off the idea, claiming that no one in Congress is looking to drill in National Parks (in fact, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has called for drilling in the Everglades). Besides, he said, national parks aren’t “money makers.”

So, we asked about legislation by Arizona Republicans to open up the area around the Grand Canyon for uranium mining. Bishop said that the proposed mining area is only the “size of the state of New Jersey,” and it would have “no impact” on the environment or tourism:

FANG: Congressman, what do you think about some National Parks that could be “money makers,” like the Grand Canyon, where they could be doing uranium mining and some other types of mineral mining.

BISHOP: You have to realize, the Arizona strip that they’re talking about where they could do mining is the size of the state of New Jersey. So there’s going to be no mining anywhere near the size of the Grand Canyon. So in fact that land was supposed to be set aside [inaudible] for mining. Whether we mine or not will have no impact on the Grand Canyon water or tourism that happens to be there.

Watch it:

As ThinkProgress has detailed, a measure to open up the area around Grand Canyon for uranium mining has been proposed by members of Congress like Bishop, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), and Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ). Mining lobbyists have lined up to push for the effort, but it appears to be losing traction.

Earlier this week, the Bureau of Land Management issued a report that rejects the idea of mining in the Grand Canyon area. A number of previous reports have pointed out that uranium mining in the area could damage drinking water by contaminating natural springs and aquifers.

By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Representative Rob Bishop (R-UT), who is behind a recent effort to roll back 36 environmental and health laws along U.S. borders, spent part of a hearing today in the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest and Public Lands disparaging the value of natural wonders like national monuments and wilderness. He stated:

Contrary to claims by the administration and others, the designation of national monuments and wilderness are not a boon to local economies, but rather a detriment in most scenarios.

This statement is contrary to recent research by Headwaters Economics, which studied 17 large national monuments in the West to determine their economic impact on the counties in which they were situated. In every single case, local economies adjacent or host to national monuments grew after the designations. Headwaters Economics takes care to say that “this does not demonstrate a cause-and-effect relationship,” but shows that “national monuments are consistent with economic growth in adjacent local communities”—evidence that refutes Bishop’s claim that monuments are a “detriment.”

A number of Republicans have come out in support of national monuments as valuable to their communities. For example, Scott Tipton (R-CO), recently sponsored a bill to designate a new national monument in Colorado, saying:

A national monument designation would increase awareness and interest in Chimney Rock, and create new tourism opportunities for the Four Corners area, potentially generating badly needed revenue and new jobs in a southwest Colorado region ravaged by double-digit unemployment.

The state of Utah already benefits greatly from the revenue and jobs generated around public lands by tourism and the outdoor industry. But at a recent hearing, Bishop made the statement that the federal government doesn’t “add much” to the state of Utah. A website entitled “Bishop’s Blunders” refutes that statement:

Bishop: But the bottom line is, even with the federal presence in the state of Utah you don’t add much.

Announcer: According to a 2011 report from the Department of Interior, federally-owned public lands in Utah draw in 21 million visitors every year to the state. That translates to $1.7 billion for the local economy, as well as 20,319 jobs. Bishop calls that “not much?”

Watch it (minute 0:53-1:19):

A recent report from CAP determined that the conservation economy (which includes the protection of public lands) “has enormous economic value” and creates many jobs every year. Additionally, the outdoor recreation industry is speaking about the importance of these jobs, and 28 Utah businesses sent a letter to the Utah delegation in August in order to pushback on attacks on public lands and associated jobs. They stated, “…we urge you to not give away the places where we hike, hunt, fish, and recreate and instead protect our iconic landscapes, and support the parks and recreation areas that our businesses rely on. As business people we see these proposed changes as being bad for our business and bad for tourism.”

Daniel J. Weiss and Arpita Bhattacharyya in a CAP cross-post

Checking pollution advisories could become a vital part of your pre-travel planning along with checking the weather and stopping the mail if the House of Representatives votes for more than 40 pollution provisions this week.

Simply put, the House could put future vacations at risk in order to keep Big Oil and coal interests happy. It plans to vote on the Interior Environment FY 2012 Appropriations bill, H.R. 2584, which is chock full of provisions that would prolong pollution of the air, water, oceans, and lands of your favorite vacation destinations.

Any one of these special interest provisions in H.R. 2584 is enough to wreck a vacation — from the Grand Canyon to the Great Lakes to Puget Sound from California’s Beaches to the Chesapeake Bay.  Taken together, they are an unprecedented assault on public health and public lands all hidden in an annual spending bill-which is why President Barack Obama promised to veto it.

Here’s how these provisions will impact 10 of America’s favorite vacation spots, with the appropriate section of H.R. 2584 included in parentheses:

By Tom Kenworthy, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

In a few days when the full House of Representatives takes up a spending bill for the Department of Interior, Rep. Dennis Rehberg (R-MT) is planning to introduce an amendment that would prevent President Obama from creating any new national monuments. No doubt there will be lots of nonsensical talk from the GOP about federal land grabs and abuses of executive power.

But the real story is that for more than a century, the Antiquities Act — which allows presidents to unilaterally create monuments — has proven a valuable tool to protect important public land sites from commercial development and provide for sustained economic growth over time.

The 1906 Antiquities Act gives the president broad authority to create national monuments from existing parcels of federal land has been used by 15 presidents from both parties since Theodore Roosevelt signed the law. It is a favorite whipping boy of western know-nothings who fancy themselves the descendants of the failed Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1980s.

In western states where the federal government manages vast tracts of forest and range, it’s easy to score cheap political points by resorting to anti-government demagoguery, as Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) did when he called the 1996 designation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah “the mother of all land grabs.” Rehberg, who is running for the U.S. Senate, is the sponsor or co-sponsor of three bills that would block presidential monument designations unless approved by Congress.

For a true picture of the value of the Antiquities Act and the executive power that has saved some of our most spectacular landscapes and most important historic and cultural sites over the past century, the House has only to look at what took place yesterday in Hampton, Virginia. There, at the Hampton Roads Convention Center, hundreds of ordinary people attended public meetings to push for federal preservation of Fort Monroe, a military installation with a 400-year history including a vital role in the Civil War and the drive to end slavery.

But time is running out to preserve this historic site, and a presidential designation as a national monument is the best option for preserving Fort Monroe until Congress can act and make it a national park.

There is ample precedent for a presidential monument designation as an interim step in making a prized area a national park. Some of our most important parks –- including Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, and Acadia -– were protected as monuments until Congress could formally make them national parks.

But the expected Interior appropriations bill amendment from Rehberg would make it impossible to do that, not just for Fort Monroe but for other cherished federal properties that deserve high levels of protection from commercial exploitation.

Earlier this year, the House narrowly rejected, 209-213, an amendment to a stopgap spending bill that would have prohibited the president from creating national monuments in the future. With Fort Monroe’s future hanging in the balance, the House should again reject any attempts to limit or scuttle the presidential authority to designate national monuments.

By Jessica Goad, manager of research and outreach, Public Lands Project, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Republicans on the House Interior and Environment Appropriations subcommittee just released a spending bill they will debate tomorrow and next Tuesday. Along with a handful of nasty riders that ThinkProgress has explained in more detail, the GOP included a new provision (Sec. 445) that would prevent the Secretary of the Interior from withdrawing 1 million acres from mineral development around the canyon. This policy proposal does not address spending in any way:

SEC. 445. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, none of the approximately 1,010,776 acres of public lands and National Forest System lands described in Public Land Order No. 7773; Emergency Withdrawal of Public and National Forest System Lands, Coconino and Mohave Counties; AZ (76 Fed. Reg. 37826) may be withdrawn from location and entry under the General Mining Law of 1872 (30 U.S.C. 22 et seq.) except as expressly authorized by a law enacted after the date of enactment of this Act that refers to this section.

Instead, this action is in response to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar’s announcement three weeks ago that the Interior Department would withdraw lands around the canyon from uranium and other mineral mining for six months while an environmental study is finalized. The announcement came after 300,000 comments were submitted by the public, many of which requested that the government protect the Grand Canyon from the recent mining boom. The rush to develop minerals under the outdated 1872 Mining Law has intensified over the last few years, and the New York Times reported that between 2005 and 2008, more than 1,000 uranium claims were staked in just one national forest adjacent to the national park.

The Grand Canyon provides an incredible place for recreation, and the Colorado River that runs through the national park provides drinking water to 25 million Americans. It is estimated by Headwaters Economics that in 2009, Grand Canyon National Park created $411 million and over 6,000 jobs in the region.

Immediately after Salazar’s decision, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) threatened to use the appropriations process to stymie the withdrawal. As a member of the subcommittee that wrote this bill, it seems obvious that he was successful. This is just the latest attempt by conservative lawmakers to trade our parks for corporate profits. Flake received contributions from a multi-national mining company in the last election cycle. Additionally, he has been endorsed by the pro-industry, right-wing Club for Growth and FreedomWorks in his campaign for U.S. Senate in 2012.

Republicans have officially unveiled a slash-and-burn budget plan for the environment, with drastic cuts to environmental agencies and numerous riders to exempt polluters from science-based regulation. The House Appropriations Committee released the fiscal year 2012 Interior and Environment Appropriations bill, to be considered in subcommittee tomorrow. The legislation includes major cuts in funding for the Department of the Interior, the EPA, the Forest Service, and various independent and related agencies.

This Tea Party budget eviscerates protections for air, water, and land while delivering industry lobbyists a grab-bag of favors. The bill denies not only the threat of global warming pollution, but also that of formaldehyde, coal ash, and pesticides. The bill cuts EPA funding by $1.8 billion, or 20 percent, below President Obama’s request, and caps employment at 1992 levels. The bill restores $55 million in offshore oil and gas subsides. The bill overrules the Department of Interior’s provisional decision to protect the Grand Canyon from uranium mining (Sec. 445).

Some of the many riders in the budget bill include:

OFFSHORE DRILLING POLLUTION

– A provision expanding permitting activities for the Outer Continental Shelf, and restricting EPA rules for air pollution on exploration permits (Sec. 433)

MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL POLLUTION

– A provision prohibiting the Office of Surface Mining from moving forward with proposed updates to the “stream buffer rule” (Sec. 432)

– A provision prohibiting federal agencies from working together on mountaintop removal permitting (Sec. 433)

– A provision prohibiting funds for defining coal ash as hazardous waste (Sec. 434)

GLOBAL WARMING POLLUTION

– A provision instituting a one-year prohibition on the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources (Sec. 431)

– A provision providing exemptions from greenhouse gas reporting for certain agricultural activities (Sec. 429)

– A provision prohibiting greenhouse gas permitting for livestock emissions (Sec. 428)

– A provision requiring the president report on all executive-branch spending related to climate change in 2011 and 2012 (Sec. 426)

WATER AND CHEMICAL POLLUTION

– A provision prohibiting the EPA from changing the definition of “navigable waterways” under the Clean Water Act (Sec. 435)

– A provision prohibiting funds for the EPA from expanding storm water discharge requirements (Sec. 439)

– A provision restricting EPA regulation of formaldehyde (Sec. 444)

By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Public Lands Project, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

America’s national parks are well-loved by Americans of all political leanings due to their immense beauty, function in preserving the past, and their iconic role in our history. But the findings of a new study released yesterday by the National Parks Conservation Association on the State of America’s National Parks show that efforts to protect national parks are more challenging than ever in the face of climate change. Indeed, it is an ironic reality that parks — the natural reserves that we will depend on to help our country and its natural resources adapt to climate change — are themselves threatened by it and other human influences. The addition of climate change to the already-evident stressors of invasive species, industrial development, degraded water, and dirty air will have an unprecedented, compounding effect on national parks, and will severely limit their abilities to bounce back from the impacts that they are already feeling:

Climate change poses a long-term threat to park resources by exacerbating landscape fragmentation and complicating traditional approaches to resource management.

Climate change is a “systemic threat” to the character and appeal of national parks, chipping away at what makes them unique and loved in the first place: glaciers melting in Glacier National Park, Joshua trees disappearing from Joshua Tree National Park, redwoods threatened in Redwood National Park, and the coral reefs surrounding Virgin Islands National Park getting bleached with rising sea temperatures.

A few weeks ago, Think Progress reported on three prominent Republicans speaking out in support of parks, an odd occurrence in an era where public lands are politicized more than ever before. Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), on the influential House Appropriations Committee, noted that fighting for the park service budget is her “number one priority” in advance of the parks’ 100th anniversary in 2016. But Republicans on committees overseeing the national park service continue to deny the very existence of man-made global warming:

- Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), the self-crowned hero of the park service budget: “I believe the jury is still out on whether mankind can alter global climate trends.” [Lummis]

- Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), Chairman of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Land: “Despite the fact that scientific data underlying the studies of global warming appear to have been manipulated to produce an intended outcome, EPA officials disregarded the contaminated science, calling it little more than a ‘blip on the history of this process.’”
” [Bishop, 12/08/09]

- Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID), Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Environment: “While scientists cannot explain the climate changes of the past few decades without including the effects of elevated greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations resulting from the use of fossil fuels, there is widespread disagreement as to the magnitude of human influence on the climate and the degree to which any effort by humanity to reduce carbon output would slow or reverse the effects of climate change.” [Simpson]

- Every GOP member of those subcommittees: The seven GOP members of the Interior and Environment Appropriations subcommittee and the 13 members of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands all supported H.R. 910 to reverse the scientific endangerment finding that greenhouse pollution threatens the public welfare [Dirty Secrets]

Major cuts have already been made on the National Park Service budget this year, which will keep the agency from being able to address man-made crises that national parks are facing. The Continuing Resolution passed by Republicans to fund the government through September made $11.5 million in cuts to the national park system when compared to FY 2010 levels. The FY 2012 is still in the midst of being worked out in Appropriations Committee, but House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s “roadmap,” passed by the House in April, cut funding to Interior and environment agencies by $2.1 billion. The park system will be underfunded, at a time when they are the most vulnerable to climate change.

Despite the pressure from deniers, the National Park Service is already undertaking efforts to anticipate and adapt to a changing world, such as the Climate Change Response Council, the creation of which Republicans bashed. As National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis said in 2010, “I believe climate change is fundamentally the greatest threat to the integrity of our national parks that we have ever experienced.” And the park service has an important role in the face of climate change, the NPCA report explains:

The National Park Service is in a unique position among federal agencies to communicate to the public both the consequences of climate change and the opportunities to avert some of those consequences by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

As the National Parks Conservation Association noted in its report, “the threats facing America’s national parks are serious and sobering. Our parks are becoming biological lifeboats in a changing and challenging landscape.” We should take this call to action seriously — it’s the only way that our parks will survive.

The nation’s public lands are a central part of our national heritage, imagination, and spirit. Millions of Americans visit our public lands each year to experience history firsthand and wonder at some of the nation’s most beautiful natural spaces. That’s why one of my proudest accomplishments from the Clinton administration is working with Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt to protect these national treasures. Together, we helped President Clinton protect more land in the lower 48 states than any president since Teddy Roosevelt, from the north rim of the Grand Canyon to President Lincoln’s Cottage to Pompeys Pillar in Montana to the California Coastal National Monument that includes 20,000 islands, rocks, and reefs. Because of President Clinton and Secretary Babbitt’s dedication, these and thousands more acres will be preserved and protected for future generations.

Today, Secretary Babbitt is back in the spotlight with an important speech about defending these lands from attack and carrying our preservation legacy forward. On this 105th anniversary of the Antiquities Act, signed by Teddy Roosevelt to protect America’s most special natural places, I hope that the President will thoughtfully consider the Secretary’s recommendations.

A first stop should be Fort Monroe. Virginia Senators Jim Webb and Mark Warner, as well as Governor Bob McDonnell, have asked to designate Fort Monroe, an important Civil War landmark once referred to as the “Gibraltar of Chesapeake Bay,” as a national monument. The Fort will be decommissioned in the fall, and designating the post as a National Monument will ensure that the post is preserved for public use for many years to come.

But that’s just the first step. Public lands are about far more than stewardship; they also help revitalize and strengthen local communities. In Utah, the counties surrounding Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument have seen strong economic growth since the designation in 1996: 38 percent growth in jobs and 30 percent growth in per-capita income. Fort Monroe would similarly benefit, as would many other sites around the country. For the sake of communities like these, and the sake of our national heritage, it is critical that we continue to make preservation a priority going forward.

Full text of Secretary Babbitt’s speech: Read more