Wednesday, 17 February 2016
Monumental Audacity – Obama Grabs Huge Western Lands by Executive Order
Written by William F. Jasper


Monumental Audacity – Obama Grabs Huge Western Lands by Executive Order

In a move that has environmental militants exulting and western farmers, ranchers, and property owners fuming, President Obama has locked up 1.8 million acres by executive fiat, with the stroke of a pen. Millions more acres are planned to follow, part of the Obama administration’s boast to use “audacious executive actions” — read unconstitutional usurpations — to advance his radical “transformative” agenda during his last months in office.

While in California on a fundraising expedition, President Obama took time on February 12 to sign an executive order proclaiming three new national monuments, imposing the strictest of federal restrictions on 1.8 million acres of the Golden State. The three new illegally created monuments are Mojave Trails National Monument (1.6 million acres), the Sand to Snow National Monument (154,000 acres), and the Castle Mountains National Monument (21,000 acres).

"In addition to permanently protecting incredible natural resources, wildlife habitat and unique historic and cultural sites, and providing recreational opportunities for a burgeoning region, the monuments will support climate resiliency in the region," the White House said in a statement. However, the designation as monuments means that these newly "protected" areas will be off-limits to mining and mineral exploration, oil and gas drilling, grazing, timber harvest — and even to many of the current recreational uses such as camping, hiking, hunting, fishing, horse-back riding, and off-road vehicle usage that the public previously has enjoyed. But that’s OK, because it’s all in the greater interest, allegedly, of “protecting” the environment and combatting global warming, according to the president.

As of this writing, the administration’s WhiteHouse.gov website opens with a beautiful landscape photo of sand dunes and rocky crags, with this greeting emblazoned on the desert sky: “Find Your Park — America's Newest National Monuments — President Obama designated three new national monuments in the California desert. He has now protected more land and water than any president in history.”

Protected? Critics say he has seized or stolen the areas in question. This is but the latest salvo in President Obama’s planned lockup of hundreds of millions of acres, which we first exposed in The New American six years ago. In a 2010 article, The New American's Joe Wolverton reported on a secret 21-page Obama memo revealed by South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, which identified 14 pieces of land that “might be good candidates” for unilateral executive land grabs utilizing the Antiquities Act. In the past two years, Obama has been especially aggressive in using executive orders to implement these planned lockups.

“We’ll Do Audacious Executive Action”

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http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/con...executive-order


White House Announcement:

In Photos: President Obama Designates 3 National Monuments in California
February 12, 2016 at 9:34 AM ET by Tanya Somanader
https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/02/...ents-california

I went hunting and found out actually it was three Presidential proclamations:

Presidential Proclamation -- Establishment of the Castle Mountains National Monument:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-off...ntains-national

Presidential Proclamation -- Establishment of the Sand to Snow National Monument
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-off...tional-monument

Presidential Proclamation -- Establishment of the Mojave Trails National Monument
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-off...tional-monument

What is a Presidential Proclamation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_proclamation