Bears Ears National Monument Photo: The Sierra Club
According to Patagonia, the clothing brand currently engulfed in an ideological, and legal, standoff with the president over public lands, Bears Ears National Monument has a lot more value than simply recreational. It turns out natural resources in the region are plentiful, calling the president’s reductions of those lands in southeast Utah last December a “political favor”:
In December of 2017, the president illegally reduced Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments by nearly two million acres. Despite overwhelming support from the majority of Americans, nearly three million of whom spoke up during a public comment period in favor of protecting our national monuments, the president invoked terms like “heritage,” “respect,” “glorious natural wonder” and “protection” to substantiate the announcement.
What wasn’t explained at the time, and only came to light with the release of thousands of pages of documents from Freedom of Information Act requests, was that the decision was nothing more than a political favor. Despite numerous promises by a handful of politicians that the two former monuments contained no significant energy resources, it turns out that they do. The redrawing of boundaries was deliberate, and directly influenced by an industry that spends millions of dollars lobbying the government to get what it wants.
Imagery from Patagonia’s website, where the post was released.
In the documents, Patagonia outlines the wealth of resources available within the boundaries. Those include 11.4 billion tons of coal, 90,000 acres of new oil and gas leases the industry has “expressed interest in,” and 500,000 tons of uranium along with timber and cattle grazing access. The report, written by Patagonia’s VP of Environmental Activism Lisa Pike Sheehy, also outlines–using quotes and maps–the distinct difference in rhetoric and boundary lines before Bears Ears was reduced and after.
“’We also have a pretty good idea of, certainly, the oil and gas potential—not much! So Bears Ears isn’t really about oil and gas,’” the report quotes Ryan Zinke. “But it was about oil and gas,” Sheehy continues. “Looking over the maps of the original monuments when compared to the redrawn versions that exist today, it’s obvious that the design of each was motivated by access to these resources, and many of the decisions that were made were put in motion long before the administration ever opened up a public comment period.”
When asked about the report’s timing Patagonia told us it was published to line up with a scoping period, where the Bureau of Land Management will host four meetings to collect public comment regarding new management plans for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante.
Patagonia has certainly had its back and forth with the president and his cabinet. In August, the company spent $700,000 in an ad campaign criticising Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke over his threats to downsize Bears Ears. Then in early December, Patagonia tweeted a black meme with white lettering stating, “The President Stole Your Land,” after Bears Ears was reduced from 1.35 million acres to 228,784, and along with Grand Staircase, was the largest Federal land reduction in the country’s history. Then the U.S. House Committee of Natural Resources fired back with a tweet of its own: “Patagonia Is Lying to You.”
When that committee invited company luminary Yvon Chouinard to testify, he politely said, “No thanks.” Patagonia is also challenging the Trump ruling in court. The series of exchanges between the iconic clothing brand and the U.S. Government has already been fairly epic and it seems the fight is just beginning.
Editor’s Note: None of the statements in the Patagonia report have been independently verified by The Inertia.
