{"id":370469,"date":"2017-06-17T21:11:16","date_gmt":"2017-06-18T03:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=370469"},"modified":"2017-06-17T21:11:16","modified_gmt":"2017-06-18T03:11:16","slug":"feds-created-organ-mountains-desert-peaks-monument-at-communitys-request","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/06\/feds-created-organ-mountains-desert-peaks-monument-at-communitys-request\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds created Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks monument at community’s request"},"content":{"rendered":"

COMMENTARY:<\/strong> Critics claim that creating the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument amounted to a massive overreach of federal power. When signing the executive order to re-evaluate the monument, President Trump said it would \u201cend another egregious abuse of federal power and give back that power to the states and to the people, where it belongs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Steve

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Steve Fischmann<\/p><\/div>\n

Sounds catchy, but the suggestion that the feds imposed the OMDP Monument on Do\u00f1a Ana County in an act of oppression turns history on its head. In fact, the feds created the monument at the community\u2019s request.<\/p>\n

When Congress failed to heed popular proposals to protect Do\u00f1a Ana County\u2019s most notable natural and cultural assets, our community organized to ask the president to do it instead.<\/p>\n

This was not an abuse of authority. It was government at its best — effectively responding to the people\u2019s wishes.<\/p>\n

Local advocates, sportsmen\u2019s groups, businesses, environmental groups and individual citizens all pitched in to help design a monument that would best preserve our unique treasures. Both the City of Las Cruces and the Do\u00f1a Ana County Board of Commissioners endorsed the proposal.<\/p>\n

New Mexico\u2019s U.S. Senate offices, the Department of the Interior and the State Land Office worked closely with stakeholders to ensure that ranching, Border Patrol and national security activities could continue unimpeded by the new designation.<\/p>\n

By the time then-Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewel visited to inspect the proposed monument, the proposal enjoyed overwhelming support in polling, from stakeholder groups throughout Do\u00f1a Ana County, and at a massive event held for the community at large.<\/p>\n

It is an outrage for the Trump administration to second guess such a fully articulated expression the will of Do\u00f1a Ana County\u2019s citizens.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, our local Congressman Stevan Pearce derides the monument by inventing a new elite and falsely claiming the monument tramples them. \u201cIn the West,\u201d Pearce says, \u201cthe custom and culture is ranching. It\u2019s something that the law was not supposed to change, our custom and culture, and it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The assertion that the \u201ccustom and culture\u201d of the twenty-some odd Do\u00f1a Ana County ranchers is more important than the desires of 200,000\u00a0other residents is downright insulting. And there is not one shred of evidence that the monument has created new burdens on ranchers, or changed their culture, or that it ever will. There is only an abiding rancher\u2019s paranoia that anything federal must be bad \u2013 except for their subsidized grazing rights, of course.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s set the record straight. The federal government acted according to the will of our community by creating the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. The only federal officials disregarding the public\u2019s wishes are office holders bent on lopping off 90 percent of the lands Do\u00f1a Ana County residents successfully fought to include.<\/p>\n

Those \u201cegregious abusers\u201d of power would be Donald Trump and Stevan Pearce.<\/p>\n

Steve Fischmann is a former state senator and one of the many Do\u00f1a Ana County residents who helped shape and support the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The suggestion that the feds imposed a national monument on Do\u00f1a Ana County in an act of oppression turns history on its head.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87776,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,16],"tags":[115,147,3278,116],"class_list":["post-370469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-guest-columns","tag-dona-ana-county","tag-environment","tag-public-lands","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}