Efforts to protect Owyhee Canyonlands heats up in Malheur County

On July 23, Rep. Cliff Bentz, who represents Oregon's 2nd Congressional District, successfully added an amendment to an Interior Department appropriations bill for the 2025 fiscal year, which seeks to prohibit the creation of any national monuments in Malheur County.

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — On July 23, Rep. Cliff Bentz, who represents Oregon's 2nd Congressional District, successfully added an amendment to an Interior Department appropriations bill for the 2025 fiscal year, which seeks to prohibit the creation of any national monuments in Malheur County.

The amendment is the latest in an ongoing battle between local activists fighting for added protections for the Owyhee Canyonlands, and those defending neighboring cattle ranches and the area’s rich potential for gold mining.

“Back in 2015, a small group of mostly urban activists funded by recreational sportswear companies tried to convince the Obama Administration that it should use the Antiquities Act to abruptly impose a national monument designation on 2.5 million acres of the 6.3 million acres making up Malheur County,” Bentz argued from the House floor on July 23. “That’s about 40% of the county’s entire area.”

The appropriations bill passed through the House on July 24, and if it were to pass through the senate without revision, would theoretically stop the Department of the Interior from using appropriated funds to establish a national monument in Malheur County. Under the Antiquities Act of 1906, the designation of a national monument simply requires presidential approval.

While it’s unclear if President Biden has any plans to establish a national monument in the area, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has spent years working with local ranchers, activists and tribes in Malheur County to establish the Malheur CEO Act (Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owyhee Act.) If passed, the bill would allow for a cattle grazing management program in the Owyhee Canyonlands area, designate wilderness areas, and hold land in trust for the Burns Paiute Tribe. Wyden’s Press Secretary Hank Stern told KOIN 6 News that the Malheur CEO Act has already passed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and is awaiting floor action in the U.S. Senate.

“Rather than engaging in needlessly divisive and partisan floor speeches that gin up false narratives, Senator Wyden has written a bill that reflects a locally based and constructive consensus that provides both protections and flexibilities to accomplish more for the Owyhee area and the people who call it home than a monument could,” Stern said. “Senator Wyden’s carefully crafted and balanced bill designates part of this natural treasure as protected wilderness, gives ranchers more grazing flexibility on rangelands and returns ancestral lands to the Burns Paiute Tribe.”

Tim Davis, a Malheur County resident and the Executive Director of Friends of the Owyhee, told KOIN 6 News that he hopes to improve protections for the land, which he said is of the last wide-open wildland spaces in the Lower 48. With a growing number of Idahoans visiting Malheur County for recreation each year, local activists like Davis are working to preserve Malheur’s natural beauty.

“It’s a 7 million acre watershed with less than 2,000 people who live in it,” Davis said. “But on its doorstep is pushing 1 million people.”

Davis said that he supports the creation of a national monument in the area. However, he also supports the Malheur CEO Act, which he says would essentially achieve the same protections.

“I wouldn't put one over the other,” Davis said. “Let's see which one we can get through to the finish line … If we can get it through congress, great. If we can get a land package together, that would be spectacular. But if congress doesn't want to work together, we ask that the president uses the Antiquities Act.”

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) is also a supporter of Wyden’s bill. Merkley’s press secretary Molly Prescott told KOIN 6 News that the Malheur CEO Act “stands the best chance of success that’s both lasting, and reflective of the wide-ranging support it’s amassed from ranchers, tribes, environmental activists and community members in Eastern Oregon.”

Bentz’s efforts to prevent the designation of a national monument in Malheur County would not stop the Malheur CEO Act from establishing added protections. It’s also “highly unlikely” that Bentz's amendment makes it into the bill’s final language, Prescott said -- which means the designation of a national monument remains a possibility.

“Appropriations bills have to have bipartisan, bicameral support to be enacted into law,” Prescott said. “That means controversial provisions are highly unlikely to be included. In fact, since Senator Merkley has been Chair of the Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, his funding bills … have carried no new controversial amendments. If the amendment does move forward, Senator Merkley will oppose the provision in final passage.”

While Democratic and Republican lawmakers are both fighting to protect specific aspects of the Owyhee Canyonlands, Davis said that there is enough space in Malheur County for everything.

“There’s enough for all of that out there,” he said. “It's about finding a balance in that landscape and making sure it stays wild and the way we have seen it.”