Gold Butte

President Obama has made another midnight ramble, locking up still more land from productive use in Nevada and Utah. Today he added to the already millions of acres of national monuments by naming Gold Butte in northeast Clark County and Bears Ears in Utah as monuments, according to the Washington Post.
Using the constitutionally questionable Antiquities Act, Obama basically declared the land in the two new monuments off limits, though we doubt Bundy’s free range cattle can tell where the boundary lies.
As WaPo noted Harry Reid has been pushing Obama to designate Gold Butte before leaving office. “Reid intensified his campaign when the Bundys were jailed earlier this year for a takeover at the Oregon wildlife refuge, arguing that any pushback would be minimized while they were incarcerated,” the paper reports.
Whether there will be a pushback from the new Trump administration remains to be seen.
Sen. Dean Heller had urged Obama to not designate Gold Butte, but Reid’s hand-picked Senate heir is not like to join with opposing the move.
Thomas Mitchell | December 28, 2016 at 2:20 pm | Tags: Gold Butte | Categories: Washinton Post | URL: http://wp.me/pobaP-4Mc