Gov. Paul LePage joined President Trump in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday as he signed an executive order to review national monuments that are part of the National Park Service system.
But it’s unclear whether the order will apply to Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in northern Penobscot County, which President Obama established over LePage’s objections in August 2016. The order calls for a review of national monuments created since Jan. 1, 1996 that are larger than 100,000 acres, and the Katahdin monument encompasses only 87,600 acres.
Read The Order
LEPAGE GOES TO WASHINGTON
Gov. Paul LePage had a busy day in Washington Wednesday.
Here’s what he did, according to communications director Peter Steele:
7:20 a.m. Met with DJ Gribbin, a special assistant to the president for infrastructure policy, for breakfast in the White House. Trump’s administration was seeking feedback from the LePage on Maine’s infrastructure needs. They talked about major infrastructure investments to help improve the Maine economy, especially in rural Maine.
11:15 a.m. Joined Trump at a press conference at the Department of Interior Headquarters, where Trump delivered remarks and signed the Antiquities Executive Order.
2:30 p.m. Joined Trump and other governors at the White House to highlight the initial actions of the Trump Administration to renew the state-federal partnership and sign the Education Federalism Executive Order. The order directs the U.S. secretary of education to review certain Department of Education regulations to ensure they comply with laws requiring state and local control of education.
4:15 p.m. With Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher, met with U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross at the Department of Commerce to discuss the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, a trade treaty between Canada and the European Union. Keliher, LePage and Ross were to discuss how the Commerce Department could help the Maine lobster industry, as well as challenges facing Maine’s agricultural industry and the state’s forest products industry.
However, the order also provides for a review if the Secretary of the Interior determines that a monuments designation or expansion “was made without adequate public outreach and coordination with relevant stakeholders.”
LePage’s communication’s director, Peter Steele, said in an email that “The Executive Order covers a review of Katahdin Woods because at least two local referendums and the Maine State Legislature voted against it.”
A tweet from LePage’s official Twitter account showed a photo of a television image of LePage in the office of the interior secretary, where Trump was signing the order. On Monday, LePage was in Fort Kent, and his trip to Washington was unannounced. “Glad to be with President Trump for the signing of his Antiquities Executive Order,” LePage tweeted.
Obama created the monument after conservationist Roxanne Quimby donated the forest land near Millinocket and Baxter State Park to the federal government. Opponents to the designation, including LePage, have been critical of putting more working forest land into public ownership and conservation.
In introducing LePage, Trump joked about the Maine governor’s recent dramatic weight loss, the result of bariatric surgery LePage underwent in September of 2016. LePage campaigned with Trump during two of the Republican president’s four visits to the state during the presidential campaign.
“I knew him when he was heavy and now I know him when he is thin and I like him both ways, OK?” Trump said.
LePage said this week that he would travel to Washington next week to testify against the designation before a U.S. House committee on natural resources. LePage made no mention of his trip to be with Trump but did say he was going to ask Trump to have the state’s Baxter State Park Authority manage the new national monument in Maine.
According to Steele, LePage was expected to spend the entire day in Washington in meetings but was returning to Maine on Wednesday night.
The monument lies in an area that was once the heart of Maine’s logging and papermaking industry but now faces an uncertain economic future. Within hours of the designation, the National Park Service was in the process of opening offices in the Katahdin region while inviting visitors to discover the monument’s “rivers, streams, woods, flora, fauna, geology, and the night skies that have attracted humans for millennia.”
LePage is also expected to testify next week during an oversight hearing of the House Committee on Natural Resources that is set to examine the consequences of “executive branch overreach of the Antiquities Act.”
In June of 2015 the committee’s chairman, U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, visited Maine to hear from opponents of the Katahdin Woods and Water National Monument at the request of Maine’s 2nd District U.S. Congressman Bruce Poliquin, also a Republican. Bishop visited East Millinocket, a meeting that was also attended by LePage.
Bishop praised Trump’s executive order in a statement released Wednesday.
“Today’s action sends the powerful message that communities will no longer take a back seat to out-of-state special interest groups,” Bishop said. “I’m pleased to see President Trump recognize long-standing abuses of the Antiquities Act. It was created with noble intent and for limited purposes, but has been hijacked to set aside increasingly large and restricted areas of land without public input.”
Pleased to support President Trump’s efforts to review the federal government’s massive land grab from the American people. #mepolitics pic.twitter.com/pyk82pchme
— Paul R. LePage (@Governor_LePage) April 26, 2017
The Antiquities Act, passed into law in 1906, authorizes the president to declare federal lands as monuments and restrict how the lands can be used.
“The executive order will direct me as the secretary to review prior monument designations and to suggest legislative changes or modifications to the monuments,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told reporters at the White House Tuesday evening, according to the Associated Press.
While Zinke acknowledged criticism that the act has been over-used by past presidents, he insisted he’d approach the topic with an open mind.
“I’m not going to predispose what the outcome is going to be,” he said.
Former President Barack Obama infuriated Utah Republicans when he created the Bears Ears National Monument in late December on more than 1 million acres of land that’s sacred to Native Americans and home to tens of thousands of archaeological sites, including ancient cliff dwellings.
Republicans in the state said it was an egregious abuse of executive power and have asked Trump to take the unusual step of reversing the designation, arguing it will stymie growth by closing the area to new commercial and energy development. The Antiquities Act does not give the president explicit power to undo a designation and no president has ever taken such a step.
The order is one of a handful the president is set to sign this week as he tries to rack up accomplishments ahead of his 100th day in office. The president has used executive orders aggressively over the last three months, despite railing against their use by Obama when he was campaigning.
Zinke said the order, which Trump will sign during a visit to his department, will cover several dozen monuments across the country designated since 1996 that total 100,000 acres or more, from the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah to the Bears Ears in southeastern Utah.
He’ll provide an interim report in 45 days in which he’ll provide a recommendation on Bears Ears and a final report within 120 days.
Over the last 20 years, Zinke said, tens of millions of acres have been designated as national monuments, limiting their use for farming, timber harvesting, mining and oil and gas exploration, and other commercial uses.
Though “by and large,” Zinke said, he feels the designations have done “a great service to the public,” he said he worries about overuse and overreach.
“I think the concern that I have and the president has is that when you designate a monument, the local community affected should have a voice,” he said.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.