NATIONAL MONUMENTS: GOP bill would 'fix' N.M. designation
Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
E&E: Friday, July 25, 2014
Two GOP congressmen this week introduced a bill they say will patch security gaps in the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument along New Mexico's southern border.
The bill, H.R. 5164, by Reps. Stevan Pearce of New Mexico and Rob Bishop of Utah, would clarify that President Obama's proclamation of the 500,000-acre monument in May will not restrict the Department of Homeland Security from conducting motorized patrols or overflights or installing surveillance or communication infrastructure in the monument to secure the Mexican border.
It would also make available an access road through the Potrillo Mountains identified in a bill by New Mexico Democratic Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich for administrative and law enforcement uses including border security.
"Drug smugglers are already trespassing into the United States by way of our federal lands and the president just did them a huge favor by creating new areas that limit the Border Patrol's ability to maintain a routine presence," Bishop said in a statement. "This legislation to fix this is imperative."
Obama's monument, modeled in part after the Udall-Heinrich bill, protected five mountain ranges above the Chihuahan Desert grasslands surrounding Las Cruces. It sparked debate over whether the protected lands would slow border officers' pursuit of illegal drug smugglers.
But U.S. Customs and Border Protection in May said the monument would have no effect on its operations.
"This designation will in no way limit our ability to perform our important border security mission, and in fact provides important flexibility as we work to meet this ongoing priority," CBP spokeswoman Jenny Burke said in an email at the time.
Garett Reppenhagen, regional coordinator for Vet Voice Foundation, a Portland, Ore.-based nonprofit that advocates for veterans on issues including clean energy and the protection of public lands, called the Pearce-Bishop measure a "bad bill."
He said it would allow border agents to enter roadless areas by vehicle even when not pursuing suspected criminals.
While the monument proclamation did not make the border less secure, passage of the Udall-Heinrich bill would bolster security by releasing a 5-mile border area from wilderness protections, Reppenhagen said. Only Congress has the ability to release so-called wilderness study areas.
The senators' S. 1805 would tighten motorized restrictions in the monument area by designating 240,000 acres of wilderness. But it also would drop wilderness protections from within 5 miles of the border and keep a major east-west route through wilderness in the Potrillo Mountains open to law enforcement officials.
