A group of House Republicans wants Trump to eliminate nine monuments and shrink 14 others

Conservationists say 2.7 million comments have been submitted, mostly supportive of the monuments

Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke has already recommended not changing Craters of the Moon, Hanford Reach

Congressional Republicans are urging President Trump to eliminate nine national monuments, including Bears Ears in Utah, and to shrink 14 others — even as hundreds of thousands of public commenters call for him to keep those monuments in place.

Seventeen House Republicans called for those changes in a letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Among the monuments targeted for elimination are Berryessa Snow Mountain in California, Grand Canyon-Parashant in Arizona, Katahdin Woods and Waters in Maine and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah. There's also Bears Ears, which comprises 1.35 million acres of sacred tribal land that President Barack Obama protected a few weeks before leaving office, infuriating Utah's congressional delegation.

"No one person should be able to unilaterally lock-up millions of acres of public land from multiple-use with the stroke of a pen. Local stakeholders deserve to have a voice on public land-use decisions that impact their livelihoods," the 17 House Republicans wrote in their letter to Zinke.

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The congresspeople also asked Trump to shrink 14 other monuments, including four in California: Carrizo Plain, Grand Sequoia, Mojave Trails and San Gabriel Mountains. They advised him not to change the boundaries of four monuments, including Sand to Snow, which stretches from the desert floor near Palm Springs to the peak of Mount San Gorgonio. Trump asked Zinke to review 27 land and marine monuments in April, all of which were designated by Obama, President George W. Bush or President Bill Clinton.

In California, the recommendation to shrink Mojave Trails drew a sharp rebuke from conservationists, who cheered Obama's designation last year of the 1.6 million-acre monument, which surrounds historic Route 66, between Mojave National Preserve and Joshua Tree National Park. Monument supporters were especially frustrated that Rep. Paul Cook, who represents Southern California's High Desert, signed the letter.

"Where Route 66 goes through the Mojave Desert — it does not have iconic motels and diners and all kinds of other things. It's very desolate," said Jim Conkle, a Route 66 historian who leads tours of the highway and thinks Trump should leave the Mojave Trails monument alone. "But it has one thing that very seldom you'll find anywhere else, and that's called viewscape ... It's gorgeous to drive through there, and to know that you're seeing not only what the people in the '20s and '30s and '40s saw, but what the indigenous people saw."

The 17 Republicans' recommendations put Cook and his colleagues at odds with the vast majority of people who have submitted public comments on Trump's monuments review since May, according to an analysis by the Center for Western Priorities, a Denver-based conservation advocacy group. The group analyzed a random sample of the more than 650,000 comments that had been posted by Monday morning, finding that 98 percent of the 1,000 comments they reviewed supported keeping or expanding existing monuments — with just 1 percent calling for Trump to shrink or eliminate them.

Interior says it received more than 1.4 million comments before Monday's deadline. Monument supporters say that number is actually more than 2.7 million, if comments gathered by conservation groups and submitted in bulk are counted individually.

READ MORE:Here are the 27 national monuments under review

Despite the public support monuments tend to enjoy, Republican politicians, energy and mining companies and some outdoor recreation enthusiasts are frustrated by what they see as abuse of the Antiquities Act, which gives presidents the authority to "declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon (federal lands) to be national monuments." The law says presidents should limit monument designations to "the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected" — a provision critics say Obama and other recent presidents have ignored.

"Misuse of this outdated 1906 Act has jeopardized the daily activities, livelihoods and traditions of local communities," the 17 House Republicans wrote to Zinke. "These massive declarations have also resulted in restrictive land-use regulations that have limited hunting, fishing, (off-roading) and other recreational activities."

The 17 Republicans acknowledged the Mojave Trails designation doesn't affect existing mining rights within the monument, although they said it could prevent future expansion of some mining operations. Monument supporters, meanwhile, are worried changes to the boundaries of Mojave Trails could clear the way for Cadiz Inc.'s controversial plan to pump groundwater from a Mojave Desert aquifer and sell it to Southern California cities.

Obama established the Sand to Snow and Mojave Trails national monuments in 2016, after several failed efforts in Congress to protect those places from mining, solar and wind farms and other forms of development. Monument bills introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, never reached a vote, and neither did legislation written by Cook, which would have established the Sand to Snow monument and offered a lesser level of protection to Mojave Trails. During an event at the Whitewater Preserve in 2015, Cook's chief of staff said monuments designated using the Antiquities Act would be "second-rate monuments, because they lack the adequate support of locals and of Congress."

RELATED:Obama protects 1.8 million acres of California desert

Cook said Thursday he's received "thousands of calls and emails from both sides of the issue." He dismissed what he called the Center for Western Priorities' "so-called analysis" of public comments, saying the conservation group "cherry picks data to fit its goals and narrative."

"The public in my district is very evenly split when it comes to Mojave Trails National Monument, with passionate supporters as well as equally impassioned opponents," Cook said in a statement.

Groups that advocated for Mojave Trails National Monument disagree, saying they built overwhelming support for the monument during a nearly decade-long public campaign.

Frazier Haney, conservation director at the Mojave Desert Land Trust, was at a public meeting hosted by Feinstein in October 2015 to gather input on the proposed Mojave Trails, Sand to Snow and Castle Mountains national monuments. More than 1,000 people packed the Whitewater Preserve for the meeting, the vast majority of whom supported a presidential designation establishing the three monuments.

"For every ounce of public opposition, there was an overwhelming amount of public support," Haney said.

RELATED:Explore the Castle Mountains National Monument

Conkle, the Route 66 historian, led the charge to create Mother Road National Monument, which was eventually re-branded as Mojave Trails. During the many years he advocated for a national monument, Conkle said, he met with chambers of commerce, service groups and other organizations across the Mojave Desert. He also drove a van the entire original length of Route 66, from Santa Monica Pier in California to Chicago — collecting 6,000 signatures in support of the monument along the way.

Conkle, who describes himself as politically conservative, would have preferred to see the Mojave Trails monument enshrined in legislation. But he said he saw enormous public support for protecting the Mother Road during his many years of advocacy.

"People listened to us, because we were passionate and we were professional. I don't know what we can do now," Conkle said. "I know the whole mood of the country is to get rid of everything Obama did, and I think that's wrong."

Cook and his colleagues also criticized Obama for creating a larger Mojave Trails monument than had been proposed in legislation. Obama protected 1.6 million acres, compared to the 950,000 acres contemplated in the final version of Feinstein's bill.

But Haney said about half the acres added by Obama were already congressionally designated wilderness, the highest level of protection federal lands can receive. Obama's additions also included two World War 2-era training sites, Camp Granite and Camp Iron Mountain, which were used by Major General George Patton to prepare troops for combat.

READ MORE:Groups want Patton's Camp Iron Mountain preserved

Haney said those areas and others were included in Feinstein's original monuments plan, but were removed later to keep the proposed Mojave Trails monument smaller than 1 million acres, to improve the odds of the bill passing Congress. Many of those areas were carved out of the proposed monument, which Obama administration officials thought "was ridiculous from a management standpoint," Haney said.

Cook, though, said the boundaries drawn by Obama were "never the subject of a single public meeting and never had any public comment." He called the inclusion of hundreds of thousands of acres of previously non-designated federal lands "deeply problematic."

"Some of these areas might be appropriate for conservation status, but the case has to be made and local consensus demonstrated first," Cook said in a statement. "President Obama’s monument boundary lacked any semblance of public outreach."

RELATED:Cadiz Inc. wants to pump groundwater near Mojave Trails monument

The letter to Zinke included two other California signatories: Tom McClintock, whose district encompasses much of the Sierra Nevadas, and Doug LaMalfa, who represents far northeastern California. Cook's district stretches north from Joshua Tree National Park, through Death Valley National Park and past Yosemite along the Nevada border.

Trump's April executive order asked Zinke to give him recommendations on 27 national monuments by August. But even if Zinke advises Trump to shrink or eliminate some monuments, it's not clear Trump has the power to do so. While Congress can abolish a national monument, the Antiquities Act doesn't explicitly give the president the authority to do so, and no president has ever tried. Several presidents have reduced the size of national monuments, according to the Congressional Research Service.

If Trump tries to alter any monuments, there's a high likelihood conservation groups will sue. And congresspeople who support those alterations could face pushback. Conkle said he'll fight Cook "tooth and nail" to protect the monument he worked to create.

"I'll find out who’s going to run against him and campaign for that person," Conkle said.

Zinke has already announced decisions about three monuments. He made a preliminary recommendation last month to shrink Bears Ears, 1.35 million acres of sacred tribal land in Utah that Obama protected a few weeks before leaving office. And the Interior Department said Thursday that Zinke would recommend no changes to Craters of the Moon in Idaho, which was established in 1924 and expanded by Clinton, or Hanford Reach in Washington, which was designated by Clinton in 2000. Hanford Reach protects the last wild stretch of the Columbia River, and Craters of the Moon preserves more than 600 square miles of ancient lava fields and other unique geologic features.

In their letter to Zinke, the 17 Republican members of Congress had asked the Trump administration to keep Hanford Reach in place and shrink Craters of the Moon.

"When the President and I began the monument review process we absolutely realized that not all monuments are the same and that not all monuments would require modifications," Zinke said in a statement. On Craters of the Moon, he added: "As a former geologist, I realize Craters of the Moon is a living timeline of the geologic history of our land on the Great Rift. Whether it's hiking up the alien-like lava flows along the Spatter Cones, or just driving through the scenic loop, there’s a lot to see and learn."

Sammy Roth writes about energy and the environment for The Desert Sun. He can be reached at sammy.roth@desertsun.com, (760) 778-4622 and @Sammy_Roth.