BOISE, Idaho – Public lands advocates from Idaho and around the country are in Washington Thursday to tell policymakers not to make changes to the country's national monuments, including Idaho's Craters of the Moon.

The Interior Department is reviewing 27 monuments that have been designated or expanded since 1996.

Originally created in 1924, Craters was expanded in 2000.

Conservation planner Avery Shawler is in the capital to defend Craters. She says while the review process could weaken protections for some national monuments, locals in Idaho want to go in the opposite direction.

"They actually are trying to get it designated as a national park because they believe that having it as a national park would put it more on the map and people would maybe come out and see it more,” she states. “It would increase visitation, and that would boost their local economy."

According to new data from research group Headwaters Economics, national monument designation status already has helped local economies. Since its expansion in 2000, per capita income in the area has grown by 36 percent.

Thursday is also the anniversary of the Antiquities Act of 1906, which gave presidents the power to designate national monuments to protect significant natural, cultural or scientific features.

Shawler says there are more reasons to defend Craters beyond the economic ones.

"It's a really, really unique landscape,” she stresses. “I mean, the lava formations are just unbelievable and you feel like you're really remote when you're out in the middle of it."

The public can comment on the review process at regulations.gov through July 10.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.




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The Bureau of Land Management recently released two rules that alter how the agency manages its 245 million acres of public lands, 48 million of which are found in Nevada.

The BLM's new Public Lands Rule will put conservation on par with other multiple uses, and the agency's Fluid Mineral Leases and Leasing Process Rule revises outdated fiscal terms for oil and gas leasing operations.

Nevada is home to four national parks which bring the state more than $280 million in economic benefit from tourism, according to the National Park Service.

The National Parks Conservation Association's Senior Program Manager of Energy and Landscape Conservation - Beau Kiklis - contended national parks are not just what he called "islands of conservation," but components of a much larger connected landscape.

"In Nevada, in particular Southern Nevada," said Kiklis, "where we do have an abundance of BLM land, there is also an abundance of national park sites in the southern part of the state, going up all the way until Death Valley. "

Kiklis said the new rule will introduce a more responsible approach to where and how the BLM authorizes oil and gas leasing as they'll be taking a closer look at "leasing preference criteria."

Kiklis said that means the agency will be assessing whether there are historic properties, sacred sites and cultural resources that are within a proposed lease area.

If there are, he said the agency will look to other areas where operators already are.

Matthew Kirby, senior director of energy and landscape conservation with the NPCA, argued the two rules will bring what he called a "semblance of balance back to public lands," and will allow the BLM to fulfill its obligation to manage those lands with a multiple use approach in mind.

He added that the oil and gas program was an example of how unbalanced management had been until now.

"Industry was allowed to lock up land for less than a price of a cup of coffee," said Kirby. "They could speculate, they could develop, all at the expense of the taxpayer and the public that was no longer actually able to use that land, to recreate on that land. But thanks to this new rule, we are really on the path to fix that broken system."

Kirby said the oil and gas rule will enshrine what he calls "critical updates," that were a part of the Inflation Reduction Act - and includes increases on the royalties and rental rates and terms for leasing the development of public lands.

As critics work to roll back new Bureau of Land Management rules, public lands advocates are defending the agency's move to put conservation uses on equal footing with extraction and development.

Matthew Kirby, senior director of energy and landscape conservation for the National Parks Conservation Association, said the new rules can be used to benefit national parks, for example, by reducing pollution from oil and gas drilling on the 3.3 million acres of BLM-managed mineral rights in eastern Colorado.

"Thousands of feet higher than where the actual drilling is happening, you can go up to Rocky Mountain National Park," Kirby recounted. "You can't even see on some days, (in part) because of pollution that is coming from drilling activities."

The rules also identify conservation tools to restore degraded lands owned by all Americans, and to keep natural landscapes intact. Industry groups have called the rules a land grab. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., have promised to repeal the rules finalized in April, claiming they block access to public lands and subvert the multiple-use requirement under the Federal Land Policy Management Act.

Ninety percent of lands managed by the BLM remain open for oil and gas development. There are more than 31,000 orphaned wells within 30 miles of national parks and the new rules update bonding requirements to prevent more abandoned sites. Kirby noted until now, corporations have run the show.

"Industry was allowed to lock up land for less than the price of a cup of coffee," Kirby asserted. "They could speculate, they could develop, all at the expense of the taxpayer and the public that was no longer actually able to recreate on that land. But thanks to this new rule, we're really on a path to fix that broken system."

The new rule also gives the BLM tools to steer any future oil and gas development away from national parks. More than 80 national park units sit adjacent to public lands managed by the BLM and Kirby argued any development affects parks, connected waterways and wildlife migration corridors.

"Wildlife migrate across borders, water moves across national park borders, air flows in and out," Kirby stressed. "What happens outside of national parks really is critical to national park resources."

Conservation groups, tribes and community organizers are praising President Joe Biden's decision Thursday to expand two national monuments in California.

Together, the monuments will gain about 120,000 acres. The Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument is 90 minutes northwest of Sacramento and the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument lies just east of Los Angeles.

Brenda Gallegos, public lands manager for the nonprofit Hispanic Access Foundation, said millions of urban families live close to the San Gabriel Mountains.

"A lot of our Latino communities don't have access to nature, prominently, like 67% of Latino communities don't have access to green spaces or blue spaces," Gallegos pointed out. "Having these expansions designated today brings us closer to closing that nature gap."

The president used his powers under the Antiquities Act to expand the monuments in order to increase public access and protect the watershed and wildlife habitat. The move also makes progress toward Biden's goal of protecting 30% of the country's public lands by 2030.

Gallegos said Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in Lake County will include an area previously known as Walker Ridge, now renamed Moluk Loyuk, which means Condor Ridge in the Patwin tribal language.

"This is important because it establishes a co-stewardship with federally recognized tribes and will return the indigenous names of these lands to them," Gallegos explained. "This continues to build that great relationship with tribes."

Land managers will now create a new management plan for the area, which could include new campsites, hiking and mountain biking trails, and even off-highway vehicle-designated routes.