While the VRWC/Repugs/BigCorp want to privatize(destroy) all the national parks ...

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Obama’s National Monuments Have Been An Economic Boon For Local Economies




The national monuments that President Obama has created or expanded are generating more than $156 million in local economic activity annually, according to a study published Wednesday.

The report, which was conducted by Colorado-based BBC Research and Consulting on behalf of an organization representing small businesses, looked at the economic activity of out-of-town visitors traveling at least 60 miles to their destinations. It found that the impact to the local workforce of such non-local visitor spending is equivalent to supporting 1,820 jobs.

“Too often, we only view land as valuable when it is being developed, mined, drilled or logged,” U.S. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) said in a statement. “But, as this report shows, we can protect the most magnificent areas of our nation while also providing real opportunities for local economies.”

The analysis focused on 10 of the 22 monuments that President Obama has designated since taking office. These 10 include only monuments that protect natural or cultural resources — such as the San Gabriel Mountains in California or Basin and Range in Nevada, and don’t include monuments protecting historic resources.

The estimated economic benefits are likely to grow in the coming years because newly designated historical monuments are in the process of expanding visitor hours, and national monuments created to protect natural and cultural resources tend to grow in popularity after designation. And Obama’s monuments are already popular: between 2011 and 2015, according to the report, these monuments saw about 3.9 million visitors each year.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...te+Progress%29

Meanwhile, the austerian, kill-govt Repugs continue to under fund national parks budget, fire fighting resources, etc, etc.

Strategy?

up govt to prove that govt is ed up, justifying privatization to predatory for-profit assholes.

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Arizona Congressjerk Will Save Grand Canyon From Barack Obama And Tyranny



There are two things you should know about Arizona teabagger Rep. Paul Gosar: He is a dentist who somehow made it into Congress, and he’s one of the reasons we Can’t Have Nice Things. Gosar is fighting a proposal to declare a new national monument on land surrounding Grand Canyon National Park, which would protect 1.7 million acres of land from uranium mining. Not that he’d ever be so crass as to say he’s in favor of adding runoff from uranium mines to the Colorado River watershed, of course not. But just think how pretty the Canyon could be if it glowed at night!

Instead, Gosar is framing the proposed monument as a “Government Land Grab,” and has scheduled a “listening session” Monday in Kingman, Arizona, so that he and the public can listen to “testimony from more than 20 Arizona witnesses” about the supposed perils of protecting land around the Grand Canyon.

The handpicked witnesses will represent a broad range of ordinary Arizonans, including a whole lot of ordinary representatives of ordinary mining companies and ordinary anti-federal-anything groups.

Our favorite is the “American Clean Energy Resources Trust,” which might sound like it’s about windmills and solar, but represents uranium mining interests.

There’ll even be TWO representatives of anti-monument activist group “Arizona Liberty,” a group of “STRONG supporters of the Cons ution of the United States of America AS WRITTEN,” and if that doesn’t sound patriotic and just a little bit loony, we don’t know what does.

http://wonkette.com/600524/arizona-c...ma-and-tyranny