By Jessica Goad and Christy Goldfuss

What do laws protecting national parks and the accidental death of a border patrol agent have in common?  Nothing. And yet a Congressman from Utah has used a recent incident to push for legislation that addresses border safety by gutting environmental laws.

Last week, Border Patrol agent Nicholas Ivie was killed in what was apparently friendly fire while responding to an alarm along the U.S.-Mexico border near Bisbee, Arizona.  The incident remains under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

This tragic incident has also reignited the debate around the relationship between environmental laws, public lands, and border security.

Before it was clear that Ivie had been killed not by drug smugglers but in an accident, two Utah Congressmen issued a press release offering their condolences and also highlighting the fact that the incident took place on public lands.  The press release stated that “The shootings occurred in the immediate proximity of federal lands…” and reminded readers that another border patrol agent was killed “on federal lands about 70 miles from where this incident took place” in December 2010.

The press release also touted a bill introduced by Congressman Rob Bishop (R-UT), who is Chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands.  The “National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act” (H.R. 1505) passed the House in June of this year.  It would roll back 16 environmental laws on public lands (including a few that protect national parks) and give the Department of Homeland Security authority to block access to public lands within 100 miles of U.S. borders in order to secure them.

The laws rolled back are: the Wilderness Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Archeological and Historic Preservation Act, the Antiquities Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act, the Fish and Wildlife Act, the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, the National Park Service Organic Act, the National Park Service General Authorities Act, parts of the National Parks and Recreation Act, and the Arizona Desert Wilderness Act.

Bishop has explained the need for this bill in the past by saying:

The Border Patrol’s inability to routinely access the entire border region leaves us not only vulnerable to the trafficking of drugs but also potential terrorists and others who wish to harm our country.  With the passage of this legislation the Border Patrol will finally have the access necessary to help us achieve a truly secure border–a sovereign nation should have nothing less.

He also told Greenwire that the incident has spurred him to reach out to various Senate offices to continue to push the bill.

While the incident did apparently take place on Bureau of Land Management land, a spokesperson stated that there were no restrictions to access on them:

BLM spokesman Dennis Godfrey said he did not believe there were any access restrictions on the lands where the shooting took place. State, federal and private lands are interspersed in a checkerboard pattern there, according to a map provided by Bishop’s office.

“It’s very, very unlikely that there were any signs,” Godfrey said. “You’d walk onto that land and not know you’d change status.”

Previously, Customs and Border Protection has stated that public lands do not stand in the way of the border patrol doing its job.  CBP has a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture and stated during a hearing on the bill that it has a “close working relationship” with the agencies that allows it to carry out its “border enforcement responsibilities while respecting and enhancing the environment.”

While the death of a border patrol agent on duty is a tragedy, it is not an excuse to roll back environmental laws in a bill that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has called “unnecessary” and “a bad policy.”

Jessica is the Manager of Research and Outreach and Christy is the Director of the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) placed blame for sagging education funding on a peculiar source: insufficient oil and gas drilling.

Bishop, who serves as chairman of the House Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, told the Western Republican Leadership Conference this month that disparities among Western states’ education funding could be placed squarely at the feet of regulations preventing unrestrained drilling and mining. “You want to fund education and help our kids?” Bishop asked the Republican audience. “You have to do the resources.”

BISHOP: Everything in red are the states that have the hardest time funding their education systems. The states that have the slowest growth, and it’s almost a 2-to-1 growth. The states in yellow increase their funding by education by 92 percent, the rest of them by 56 percent. [...] The fact that our land is not in our control means we don’t get property tax for it, we don’t have the development of it which produces income tax or severance tax. [...] Let me show you the difference between Wyoming and Montana. The blue is what Wyoming was able to pay their teachers in every one of those classes, the red is what Montana did. I promise you the difference between what Wyoming and Montana is Wyoming has resources and they actively develop them. You want to fund education and help our kids? You have to do the resources.

Watch it:

Bishop’s concern for education funding is somewhat spurious, considering his record of consistently voting against education funding during his five terms in the House. Just last fall, in fact, Bishop voted against a $26 billion state aid bill designed to prevent thousands of teachers from being laid off.

As such, many might view the Utah Republican’s supposed concern for education funding as little more than a stalking horse to open up more western lands and public parks to drilling. Indeed, at the same conference, Bishop told the audience about his belief that federal control of public lands is unconstitutional. He also told ThinkProgress afterward of his desire to mine an area around the Grand Canyon the size of the state of New Jersey.

Drilling is not the answer for education funding woes. Prioritizing education is.

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.

The House Resources Subcommittee on National Parks Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) made a startling claim at a Republican conference late last week: current federal control of public lands is unconstitutional.

Bishop was on a panel during the Western Republican Leadership Conference to discuss federal control of public lands in the West. After comparing the large tracts of public land that exist out West to the Soviet Union, Bishop told the conservative crowd, “I defy you to find anywhere in the Constitution where this is allowable.”

BISHOP: Federal government owns one out of every three acres in this country. If it’s west of Denver, it’s one out of every two acres. If this kind of federal control is good, then the Soviet Union should have been the Garden of Eden. But what this presents to us – and I defy you to find anywhere in the Constitution where this is allowable - but what it defines to us is – the second slide if you would – everything in red are the states that had the hardest time funding their educations system.

Listen to it:

ThinkProgress caught up with Bishop after the event to find out more about public lands’ supposed unconstitutionality. The Utah Republican told us that federal control of lands out was “never intended” to be permanent. He conceded that national parks were acceptable – “because they’re not moneymakers anyway” – but said that other public lands “could easily be developed and should be developed and there’s no reason for the federal government to keep them.” Read more

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.”

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

Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee passed a bill out of committee yesterday that would waive 36 environmental, health, and tribal laws within 100 miles of U.S. land borders. H.R. 1505, the National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act, would give Customs and Border Protection, an agency under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security, complete authority to waive these 36 laws if the agency deemed it necessary for border control activities. These laws include the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Superfund Law, and the Clean Water Act (see full list here).

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), who sponsored the bill, defended it by claiming that “apparently we cannot have security with the present environmental laws.”

This bill simply removes the impediments, the prohibitions, and the restrictions. If Homeland Security needed to waive 36 laws to build the fence, those same 36 laws need to be waived for the border so they can do their job, and I defy anybody to tell me which of those laws has a higher priority than border security. You can have a good environment with security but apparently we cannot have security with the present environmental laws and the cavalier attitude in which they are being administered.

Watch it:

Democrats on the committee questioned why only environmental laws were included in the list, rather than bills regulating industrial development on public lands such as mining, energy development, and timber. They pointed out that if Rep. Bishop’s claim is true — that “unacceptable restrictions…prevent Border Security experts from doing their jobs” — then other laws dictating the use of federal lands should be included on the list. An amendment from Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) added two statutes governing mineral development and oil and gas extraction to the bill, and yet even after the amendment process, the bill remained almost entirely focused on rolling back environmental and health laws.

H.R. 1505 would also give Customs and Border Protection decision-making authority over federal land management agencies to conduct activities that “assist in securing” the U.S. border. This means that any recreational or industrial use of federal lands, such as hunting, fishing, hiking, grazing, mining, and many others, could be ended at a moment’s notice if Customs and Border Patrol demanded access to and control of a specific area.

For example, a hunting trip in the Gila National Forest in New Mexico or a fishing trip in Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota could be suddenly interrupted by new roads and fences. All of this could occur without any public notice or comment, or even judicial review. As ThinkProgress reported this summer, these authorities are “czarlike powers” for a single agency and could compromise our country’s critical checks and balances system.

In April, a representative from Customs and Border Protection testified that his agency already has a strong working relationship with public lands agencies, saying, “We continue to work with our federal land management partners to ensure that we effectively comply with environmental laws while we carry out our responsibilities to protect the nation.”

Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) said yesterday that this bill should be thought of as “undocumented legislation,” in that Republicans are attempting to “sneak it into law” by claiming that border security and environmental protections cannot go hand in hand.

By Tom Kenworthy, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Proponents of restricting presidential authority to create national monuments on federal land tried hard today during a congressional hearing to make the case that such land protections inhibit economic growth, but they ran headlong into a comprehensive economic study that clearly shows otherwise.

Both Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee’s subcommittee on public lands, and Jerry Taylor, the mayor of Escalante, Utah, spoke in favor of a suite of bills that would limit or strip a presidential authority dating to the 1906 Antiquities Act. The act gives presidents sole authority to create national monuments and has been used by most presidents of both parties for more than a century.

Taylor asserted that the 1996 creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah was an economic bust, and Bishop said the same was true for the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument on the Utah-Arizona border:

I don’t see where the monument has brought in any jobs for our community.

Here are the facts, authoritatively reported in a new study by Headwaters Economics, an independent, nonpartisan research center in Bozeman, Montana that looked at the economic performance of areas around 17 national monuments in 11 western states:

Between its creation by President Bill Clinton in 1996 and 2008, the communities around the 1.8 million acre Grand Staircase saw their population grow by 8 percent – and had job growth of 38%. During the same time period, real personal income rose by 40% and real per capita income jumped 30%. Service jobs saw an increase of 59%.

In the Grand-Canyon-Parashant region, jobs grew by 44 percent between 2000 and 2008, ten percentage points higher than population growth. Real personal income was up 44 percent.

And it wasn’t just Utah communities that benefitted. Not one of the areas surrounding the 17 monuments created since 1982 and studied by Headwaters Economics suffered economically. In fact, according to Ray Rasker, the group’s executive director, “In all cases there was growth of employment, real personal income, and real per capita income after designation of the national monument.”

Supporters of the various bills to change the monument designation process, either by giving Congress the sole authority or by requiring the president to get state approval before creating new monuments, contend they are trying to protect local economies from assaults by presidents and “faceless bureaucrats” hell-bent on launching federal “land grabs.”

The goal of his Senate legislation and a companion House bill, said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) at today’s hearing, “is to protect jobs.”

But the real goal is clear: the only jobs Hatch – up for re-election next year — and the others like Rep. Dennis Rehberg (R-MT), also a candidate for Senate in 2012, are trying to protect are their own, by demagogic appeals to anti-Washington voters.

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.