WASHINGTON — A bill introduced Monday by 2nd District Republican U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin would require Maine's governor and state legislature to give the OK before President Barack Obama can designate a national monument in the Katahdin Region.
Supporters of a monument are lobbying the president to create one as a first step toward establishing a national park in Maine's north woods. But three of four members of Maine's Congressional Delegation, including Poliquin, wrote to the president last week expressing serious reservations about such a move.
In the letter, Poliquin and U.S. Sens. Angus King, an independent, and Susan Collins, a Republican, noted serious, ongoing division in the region over the concept of a national park and recreation area. Under the proposal, Elliotsville Plantation, which manages Roxanne Quimby's land holdings, would donate 87,500 acres east of Baxter State Park to the National Park Service.
Poliquin, Collins and King stopped short of declaring their outright opposition to a national monument. Instead, they urged the president to incorporate a long list of conditions, should he decide to go ahead and use his executive authority, under the Antiquities Act of 1906, to set Quimby's land aside.
Reached at the U.S. Capitol Tuesday, Poliquin was emphatic in his opposition to a monument.
"I don't believe it is fair for one individual, who happens to be the president, to unilaterally be able to increase the federal government's footprint, in any state," he says.
So to address what Poliquin sees as this basic unfairness, the first-term Republican congressman has introduced a bill, the Preserving State Rights Act.
"And so what this bill simply says is, before that can happen, the governor of that state and that state legislature of that state that represents the people of that state, need to make sure they weigh in and they approve it before the president of the United States can so designate a national monument," he says.
Supporters and opponents of a national park and recreation area have been battling each other for months over just what the will of people in the Katahdin region really is.
Park opponents in the area argue that putting land under federal control could take surrounding forests out of production and lead to a losses of current and future logging jobs. They cite two nonbinding referendums, held over the summer, where roughly 70 percent of residents in East Millinocket and Medway voted against the creation of a national park and recreation area. And they point to another summer event, where 225 local businesses came out against the plan.
Supporters, though, say Poliquin and other opponents are overstating the level of opposition in the area.
"Poliquin is ignoring the clear economic opportunity that the creation of a national park and national recreation area, in the Katahdin region, represents," says David Farmer, spokesperson for Elliotsville Plantation.
Local chambers of commerce have come out in favor of a park and recreation area. They cite studies that show the plan could bring a flood of tourists and outdoor enthusiasts into the region and create badly needed jobs in a part of Maine decimated by the collapse of papermaking.
Supporters also point to statewide polls showing clear support for a national park and recreation area.
Farmer says bills like Poliquin's have been proposed before and haven't gone anywhere.
"The reason this idea has run into opposition is presidents, Republicans and Democrats alike, have recognized that the Antiquities Act gives them the ability to preserve places in our country that are significant, even though there are sometimes sentiments like Rep. Poliquin's," he says.
Farmer says a monument designation could pave the way for the creation of national park, as it has at Acadia, Grand Canyon, Zion and other national parks.