“Obama designated more than 1.8 million acres of California desert for protection with the creation of three national monuments: Castle Mountains, Mojave Trails and Sand to Snow,” the Washington Post reported. “The new monuments will connect three existing sites — Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks and the Mojave National Preserve — to create the second-largest desert preserve in the world.”

“President Obama has set aside more of America’s lands and waters for conservation protection than any of his predecessors, and he is preparing to do even more before he leaves office next year. The result may be one of the most expansive environmental and historic-preservation legacies in presidential history.”

Obama’s desert monuments marked a victory of sorts for California’s senior senator, who had to turn to the president to accomplish what she could not in Congress. “The designation was requested by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who for a decade has sought to protect land that wasn’t included in the 1994 California Desert Protection Act. That measure covered nearly 7.6 million acres, elevated Death Valley and Joshua Tree to national park status and created the Mojave National Preserve,” recalled the Los Angeles Times. “Unable to gain momentum on her California Desert Conservation and Recreation Act last year, Feinstein and conservation groups asked Obama to act unilaterally to create the three monuments overlapping biological zones between roughly Palm Springs and the Nevada border.”

Fears of more

Yet the executive action rankled critics — not only among out-of-state Republicans, who have chastised the president’s unilateral measures in the past, but among local California officials. “Utah’s congressional delegation is urging President Barack Obama not to use his powers under the Antiquities Act to designate a national monument on federal lands in San Juan County,” the Moab Sun News reported. “The calls from the state’s four Republican congressmen and two U.S. senators come on the heels of the president’s designation last week of three new national monuments in southern California’s Mojave Desert.”

“The move amplified the Utah delegation’s fears that a 1.9-million-acre Bears Ears National Monument may be next on the president’s agenda. ‘Use of the Antiquities Act … will be met with fierce local opposition and will further polarize federal land-use discussions for years, if not decades,’ the delegation says in a letter to Obama.”

Local divides

Meanwhile, in California, the president’s action triggered the kind of local dismay warned of by the Utah delegation. “San Bernardino County politicians said it could jeopardize a lucrative mining operation in the Castle Mountains and off-highway vehicle recreation areas,” according to the Desert Sun. “In separate written statements, San Bernardino County Supervisors Curt Hagman and Robert Lovingood and Rep. Paul Cook, R-Apple Valley, accused the president of bypassing the legislative process via the Antiquities Act.”

Lovingood, noted the Sun, “said the Castle Mountains gold mine, which sits in the center of the newly designated national monument abutting the California/Nevada border, has the potential to generate more than $225 million in tax revenue and create roughly 300 jobs if scaled up to full production. But under the president’s executive action, it appears there is no mechanism for the National Park Service to issue the necessary permits[.]”

But at least some area locals had thrown their weight behind the new monuments. “Several Latino coalitions participated in the effort to protect the desert areas, including the Council of Mexican Federations, the Latino Conservation Alliance and the faith-based organization Por La Creación,” according to KPCC. Maite Arce, president and CEO of Hispanic Access Foundation, told the station “wide local participation was made possible by the large Latino population in the region.”

“Terminal Logistics will start building the $250 million Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal at the Oakland Global Trade & Logistics Center later this year,” reported the San Jose Mercury News, “and hopes to finish the 35-acre project in 2017.”

Though potentially lucrative, the deal has sent California environmentalists into crisis mode. For years, environmental groups inside and outside the state have invested heavily in convincing public opinion that coal use is harmful and should be abandoned.

Scrambling opposition

Opponents of the coal deal have found themselves struggling to reverse its political momentum. In addition to familiar faces like the Sierra Club and groups like WildEarth Guardians, the Mercury News noted, Oakland’s own city leaders have voiced their dismay while leaving open the question of just how to proceed. “Obviously, we’re going to work with our business partners to try and reach a mutually acceptable way of moving forward,” said Mayor Libby Schaaf. “This is a very important project for the city of Oakland, and this policy resolution is important also.”

The difficulty in turning back the deal reached all the way to the White House, which sparked outrage among environmentalists by advancing a parallel initiative designed to market Utah’s coal. The proposal, which would put millions of tons of the resource on the auction block, drew an unhappy press release from WildEarth, Sierra Club and other organizations.

“Selling more coal portends disaster for our public lands, our climate and our clean energy future,” said Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians’ climate and energy program director. “While President Obama is calling for action to combat climate change, his administration seems to be doing everything they can to appease the coal industry and open the door for more carbon pollution.”

Looking to head off a wave of opposition, state officials backing the plan have underscored that Utah coal burns cleaner than the alternative in the Asian markets where it would be headed. Laura Nelson, director of the state’s Office of Energy Development, called the port project “an opportunity for those markets to displace dirtier coal with Utah coal, which has a lower sulfur and water content and higher BTU, which means it produces energy more efficiently.”

Market momentum

Defenders of the plan, meanwhile, also pointed out that coal transportation was just a first step in building a broader economic relationship.

Gordon Walker, chairman of Utah’s Permanent Community Impact Fund Board, told the Salt Lake Tribute that commodities ranging from alfalfa and grain to salt and iron ore could soon follow along the shipping line opened up by the coal deal.

“What we are doing is creating through-put for other commodities that are coming online. Potash is going to be a big deal,” Walker said, referring to the proposed Potash Ridge mine in Beaver County. “This benefits all of rural Utah. We have created a bigger pie.”

Given the sheer size and cots of the project, supporters like Walker had an incentive to emphasize the staying power of the new arrangement with Oakland. To ready the port that will receive the coal, the Tribute noted, Utah will spend over $50 million in federal mining royalties — allocated by the board, in the form of a low-interest loan, to the state’s most significant mining counties.

Costs and benefits

Like any major infrastructure venture, the port plan has offered Utahns a tradeoff between potential benefits and a certain level of risk. As in-state critics have observed, though the specific terms of the 66-year contract have yet to be hammered out, the full cost of port construction has been estimated to top out around $275 million.