Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 33, Number 8, 1 August 2016 — Expanding Papahānaumokuākea Should Require Puhlie Hearings [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Expanding Papahānaumokuākea Should Require Puhlie Hearings

join most of the people of Hawai'i in supporting the existing Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Monument in the Northwestem Hawaiian Islands whieh was signed into law by President Bush. But I have great concems about the request of President Obama to expand its boundaries and federal eontrol of Hawaiian waters. No doubt the impact on commercial fishing, pailieulailv tuna, is a subiect of veiv

heated debate and should be a particularly impoitant, if not vital eoneem, for Hawai'i as a matter of food secmity and eeonomie impact. But any proposal to expand the existing boundai'ies of the Monument to four times its existing area, making it twice the size of Texas, is about more than fishing. In my opinion the most important question swkls ai'ound the legal insti'ument used to establish the existing Mai'ine National MonumenL whieh may be on the verge of being invoked a second time to effect a sweeping expansion of its boundai'ies. Advocates of expansion of the Monument propose more federal eontrol over the Northwestem Hawaiian Islands and m'ge President Obama to invoke the Antiquities Act of 1906. The Act authorizes the president to bypass the congress, the state of Hawai'i, and the people of Hawai'i. The Antiquities Act was originally intended to fast track protection of Native Amei'iean ai'chaeological sites, historic structures, and aitifacts that were subject to looting at the time by declai'ing relatively small areas of land as National Monuments and bringing them under federal protection. Applying the Act in a sweeping redesignation of hundreds of thousands of square miles of Hawai'i's oceans, far beyond the existing monument boundai'ies, is a major public policy shift with huge implications. The Act does not requii'e any public vetting and I believe invoking the AeL in this case, is a ti'ansgi'ession of the public's right to a foimalized process that would noimally be required of any legislative

proposal as sweeping as this. It's interesting how the state of Alaska, in their wisdom, got Congress to pass the Alaska Nahonal Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 that requires congressional approval for all national monument proclamations in Alaska greater than 5,000 acres. Alaska was preceded by Wyoming in 1950 with a similar law. It seems that in both cases the proponents for shielding thek states from the Antiqui-

ties Act stemmed from theh opposition to taking away decisions they felt should be made by the citizens of theh states. The proposed expansion screams for vetting through a puhlie disclosure and discussion process that yields the following outcomes: • Maximizes polhieal transpai'ency and legitimate opportunities for puhlie participation. • Spells out what exactly is achieved by the expansion that is not aheady achieved by the existing Monument. • Cleai'ly demonstrates the need. • Spells out what is impacted by the expansion that is not already addressed by existing federal and state laws such as the Magnuson-Stevens Act regulating eommei'eial fishing. • A budget proposal that lays out the cost of enforcement to the state and federal governments and what I assume will be a dramatic increase in cost to manage the Monument as aiticulated in the Papahānaumokuākea Natural Resources Science Plan. • Disclosure of non-mai'ine eon-sei-vation objectives such as militaiy activity, whieh is exempt from the peimitting process. • An unbiased analysis of the eeonomie impact of banning all eommei'eial activity that prohibits accessing abundant natural resom'ces even for a public purpose such as renewable natiual energy. My hope is, no matter what one's perspective might be, that we join in a request to our state and federal authorities to stage a series of puhlie heai'ings and let the sun shine on Papahānaumokuākea. ■

PetEP Apo Trustee, O'ahu