Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

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Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chair, this amendment previously failed by recorded vote in July of 2016. The amendment taxed ranchers and attempts to relitigate the Bundy matter.

DOJ was found to have withheld evidence and to have violated these ranchers' rights. There is no reason to relitigate this matter at this juncture. The regulations are already in place.

This is an unnecessary political amendment.

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Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman brings up exactly the point I am trying to make. We are trying to relitigate a previously settled issue. It was actually found that these ranchers' rights were violated by the Department of Justice.

We started looking--the Hammonds were brought up. When we were actually looking at this case where they actually tried to look at the fire danger on their land, and it got beyond their lands and on to public land, they were fined exclusively and hardlined.

Where is the same type of justice given to the Forest Service or the BLM when their prescribed burn fires go out of hand and take private holdings? It is not the same. This isn't about freeloading. This is about a case where we need to look at how we take care of our public lands.

Mr. Chair, I ask everybody to vote against this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer an amendment that supports recreational shooting, K-12 education, and responsible energy development by prohibiting funds for the Ironwood Forest National Monument that was unilaterally designated under the Antiquities Act.

By looking at the map here, it is very clear that this monument was a political land grab meant to prevent responsible energy and mineral production, as well as multiple use on Federal lands. You couldn't construct something even worse than that.

As you can see, the monument boundary starts in the right corner here in the yellow and includes a large mineral deposit that includes molybdenum, manganese, gold, and peripheral lead-zinc-silver.

The boundary then works its way up and also encircles the purple, which is a significant copper deposit.

Continuing to move up to the green, the monument encompasses significant amounts of lead, zinc, and silver veins.

Moving further up the map to the next yellow, the monument encircles the entire Silver Bell Mine and operations, as well as other claims, and also encompasses massive mineral deposits that contain molybdenum, manganese, gold, and peripheral lead-zinc-silver.

Moving to the blue and to the top left of the monument, the boundary almost entirely encircles two large veins that contain barium, lead, and silver.

Essentially, all the colored areas on the map are off limits to new energy and mineral exploration and development as a result of the monument land grab.

Proponents claim the 188,619-acre monument is necessary to protect a stand of ironwood trees covering 640 acres. Let me repeat that. Proponents claim the 188,619-acre monument is necessary to protect a stand of ironwood trees covering 640 acres.

Wow. If this unilateral monument designation was not political, it would have had a significantly different boundary and been much smaller.

There is nothing glamorous about this monument, and it was an unconstitutional taking by then-Secretary Babbitt and the Clinton administration, pointblank.

The Arizona Mining Association, Arizona Rock Products Association, Arizona Mining Industry Gets Our Support, and the Southern Arizona Business Coalition recently asked for this monument to be modified significantly, stating: ``One-third of the area encompassed in the Ironwood Monument is either State trust lands or privately owned. These lands have effectively lost all economic potential as a result of the national monument designation. . . . At the time of the designation, the State government estimated that it would lose $100 million in mineral rights. This does not include financial losses to private companies or the lost employment potential for the mines.''

Asarco and Liberty Star Uranium and Metals Corporation of Tucson have also asked for this monument to be significantly altered.

Further, the Ironwood Forest National Monument has caused harm to the common schools beneficiary, K-12 education, by locking up these lands, preventing multiple use, and stopping important revenues from flowing to the educational coffers.

The Ironwood Forest National Monument enacted a complete ban on recreational shooting. No utility corridors are allowed in the monument. One-quarter of the monument can be closed to human entry for over one-third of the year due to the presence of sheep, and nearly 10,000 acres of this monument are completely locked up at all times. Further, the monument constitutes an attack on ranchers by negatively impacting grazing.

This monument designation was an unconstitutional taking. Asarco invested $72 million prior to the monument designation in hopes of expanding the mine. They will likely invest several hundred million more, create new jobs, and grow the economy if the mine is no longer within the monument boundary.

The Arizona Game and Fish Department has not been able to fully implement vital management activities within the monument boundaries, including fencing to protect wildlife, predator control, law enforcement wildlife investigations, and responses to illegal wildlife activities.

In November, 24 Members of Congress sent President Trump a letter recommending a recession of this monument amongst other monument recommendations. That letter was endorsed by the American Farm Bureau Federation, Americans for Responsible Recreation Access, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, and the Public Lands Council.

This amendment is endorsed by the American Exploration and Mining Association, American Encore, AMIGOS, Asarco Mining, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Free Market America, the Arizona Farm Bureau, Arizona Liberty, the Arizona Pork Council, Concerned Citizens for America, Eagle Motorcycles, Rim Country Custom Rods, the Southern Arizona Business Coalition, and Yavapai County Supervisor Jack R. Smith, amongst others.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman and ranking member for their time and for their good work on this bill.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, look at how this monument is connected and concocted. I think every which way. You couldn't make a worse definition for a monument.

What it basically does is it goes to the far side to catch these two minerals over here. Down here in the middle, it goes to the far edge. This is called gerrymandering for minerals. This is a political bias based upon takings from the people of Arizona.

Remember, I responded by saying: Listen, one-third of this designation was private and State lands. These are part of the dedication to the citizens of Arizona.

So when you look at this, this is the worst concocted. This is the vanity of, actually, atrocities of monuments gone haywire.

Now, I am happy to work with the gentleman from southern Arizona to rightsize this monument. I would be happy to do that. But this concoction is a blatant exercise in overjurisdiction of the Federal Government and misutilizing the Antiquities Act.

Mr. Chairman, I ask everybody to vote for my amendment.

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