EAST MILLINOCKET, Maine — The U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources will hold a field hearing on a proposed North Woods national monument at the town office next month in response to a request from U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine.
“Unlike the Obama Administration, the committee will not dismiss the legitimate concerns of Poliquin and his constituents,” committee Chairman U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, said in a statement announcing the hearing Wednesday afternoon. “The proposed monument designation in Maine’s Katahdin region would be another abuse of the Antiquities Act, exercised unilaterally with complete disregard for local residents, businesses and elected officials.”
The hearing announcement continued the intense politicization of the monument debate in Maine.
Titled “Elevating Local Voices and Promoting Transparency for a Potential Monument Designation in Maine,” the hearing will be held at 2 p.m. Wednesday, June 1. It comes after forums hosted by U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, at Katahdin Region Higher Education Center in East Millinocket and the University of Maine in Orono on Monday. National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis attended those forums.
Poliquin said he was grateful that Bishop agreed to the field hearing.
“So far, the Obama Administration has ignored the serious concerns of the local residents, businesses and stakeholders in the Katahdin region on this national monument proposal,” Poliquin said in a statement. “It is extremely encouraging that the committee has acted to ensure that the concerns of our local constituents will be heard on this matter.”
Poliquin has voiced opposition to President Barack Obama issuing an executive order that would make a monument of about 87,500 acres east of Baxter State Park owned by the family of entrepreneur Roxanne Quimby. The congressman has a bill pending that would restrict presidential authority to designate monuments.
King has said that he has gone from opposing the plan while governor a decade ago to listening to viewpoints on the proposal. The forums showcased how the proposal has bitterly divided local residents on each side of the debate and the pro-park constituency around the state from opponents in the Katahdin region.
It is unclear what impact the House field hearing or the forums will have on the decision, which Obama can make unilaterally. Jarvis could shed little light on the presidential process in an interview with the Bangor Daily News on Monday.
Jarvis said he hadn’t yet decided whether to recommend that the park service endorse the proposal and did not know whether the president would consult with Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, Jarvis’ boss, before issuing an executive order. His recommendations go through her in the chain of command, he said.
Jarvis said he did not know whether Obama and Jewell have discussed the Quimby proposal.
Leading park proponent Lucas St. Clair, Quimby’s son, said in November that he was discussing a monument designation with the White House as a stepping stone to a park.
Jarvis said the park service treated monuments no differently than parks, although experts have said that generally parks have stricter operational guidelines and fewer permitted uses than monuments. Jarvis said that he had toured the Quimby lands four times and found them worthy of monument designation. He called Quimby’s offer of a $20 million endowment and an additional $20 million in fundraising completely unprecedented.
The park service, he said, has no interest in expanding the proposed monument land beyond its present boundaries and would not — could not — use eminent domain powers to seize adjoining land.
Exactly what form the House committee hearing will take in East Millinocket was not immediately clear. A committee staffer speaking on background Wednesday said the committee typically holds field hearings a half-dozen times a year and that all 44 members were invited to Maine, though typically far fewer make such trips.
The committee would hold what would be considered an oversight hearing, because it concerns activities by the park service, not pending legislation.
It could not immediately be determined whether the committee had ever held a field hearing in Maine. Field hearings are much more typically held in the West, where the federal government owns the most land.
Field hearings carry all the weight of other committee hearings. Four field hearings were held by the Natural Resource Committee last year. The most recent field committee hearing occurred in Utah in January. Utah’s congressional delegation held the hearing in response to complaints that the federal Bureau of Land Management was not working with local officials on resource management plans for the Red Cliffs and Beaver Dam Wash national conservation areas, a 45,000-acre protected tortoise habitat located north of the city of St. George, according to the St. George News.
When asked what U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, who supports the monument proposal, thought of the pending House hearing, her spokesman, Willy Ritch, issued a statement on her behalf that praised the King forums as “open and inclusive and were a good opportunity for people of all viewpoints to make their opinions known.”
“A private landowner has made a very generous offer and any objective examination of this proposal is going to come to the conclusion that it represents a great economic opportunity for the entire state,” it concluded.
House members weren’t the only ones addressing the monument issue Wednesday.
King’s spokesman Scott Ogden said Wednesday that King “welcomes this continued dialogue about the proposal and hopes that Congressman Poliquin and the committee have an open and productive discussion like the ones [King] had earlier this week.”
Annie Clark, spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the senator “continues to have significant concerns about the proposal to designate a national monument in the Katahdin region. She joined with Senator King and Congressman Poliquin in a letter articulating several specific items that she believes need to be addressed and was very dissatisfied with the administration’s response. More broadly, she believes that it is a mistake for the president to designate land under [his authority] without state approval.”
Collins “continues to believe that the voices of those who call the Katahdin region home are the most important in this discussion, and she looks forward to an ongoing and open dialogue,” Clark added.
Collins’ staff will attend the field hearing, Clark said.
Gov. Paul LePage’s spokeswoman, Adrienne Bennett, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.