Good on President Obama for creating a San Juan Islands National Monument.
President Obama on Monday will create a 955-acre national monument in Washington’s scenic San Juan Islands, using his authority under the same 1906 law deployed by President Theodore Roosevelt to begin preservation of this state’s Olympic Mountains and the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
The monument was championed by Western Washington lawmakers after legislation to create a National Conservation Area stalled in the Republican-controlled House Natural Resources Committee. Its chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., has not even bothered to hold a hearing on the proposal.
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Both federal, state and local officials have backed the monument not just to protect unspoiled places in the San Juan archipelago, but for economic reasons. Preservation is no longer “locking up” land, but rather welcoming visitors. “A national monument increases recreation dramatically,” Ranker said.
It’s quite amazing, and a testament not just to the administration and the legislators who made it happen, but the activists as well.
BO should make a Doc Hastings Monument to Ossified Stupidity
Which island? Orcas, Lopez, Shaw? What?
If I’m reading the map on the official site correctly, it’s lots of bits and pieces scattered around, small rocks and such, with one large chunk of land at the south end of Lopez.
Lopez is a good choice.
It covers any BLM land within the boundaries; mostly coastal points, small islands and big rocks.
Everything good in this country happens in spite of, not because of, Republicans. So why does anyone vote for those asswipes?
From 6,
What does that have to do withLopez Island?