Artifacts, Tortoises and Taxes

What do they have in common?  More than you could imagine.

The places were different; Utah and Nevada  and the time range is great, but one event tied them all together. 

On December 28, 2016, outgoing President Barack Obama signed into law a proclamation declaring two new National Monuments, Bears Ears in Utah and Gold Butte in Nevada, thereby withdrawing 1.6 million areas of land that would now have much more limited use for individual citizens or companies. Governors of both states and residents opposed the action but congressmen were not in agreement. It was done in a clandestine move over the Christmas Holiday using a very outdated 1906 Antiquities Act which set penalties of $500 or less, and 90 days or less jail time for persons who “appropriate, excavate, injure, or destroy any historic or prehistoric ruin or monument.”  While that was an honorable intention in the days when a few people were ransacking historic and prehistoric sites and graves for the treasures that they contained, the Act provided for scientific removal for museums and gave the executive power to the President to create Monuments to preserve “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest” to protect them.

Did these two large areas contain significant features that were not already protected by some other law or branch of government?  They did not.