Monthly Archives: June 2017

The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah is one of 27 national monuments under review by the interior secretary, per executive order. Bob Wick/BLM/Flickr hide caption

The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah is one of 27 national monuments under review by the interior secretary, per executive order.

A looming decision about whether to abolish or shrink the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah should provide an early signal of how the Trump administration will deal with a long list of public lands issues.

For roughly a month and a half, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has had 27 national monuments under a microscope, reviewing the protected status of these vast expanses of land (and, in some cases, water) at the prompting of an April executive order by President Trump.

The idea, according to the order, is to assure that each of these areas is appropriately designated under the 1906 Antiquities Act, a law that gives the president the authority to establish national monuments ... with a few caveats. Namely, they must include "historic landmarks" or "other objects of historic or scientific interest," and they must not exceed "the smallest area" necessary for their upkeep.

At issue is whether the presidents who created the monuments overstepped their authority. But just as important to those who live around the sites is whether they restrict the economy and ignore local interests.

Bears Ears, established last year by President Barack Obama, is the first on Zinke's list. But a second Utah site, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, offers a more comprehensive glimpse into the controversy that eddies around many of the monuments and a revealing peek into what Zinke may ultimately recommend to the president.

So, here it is: a tour of Grand Staircase-Escalante. That is, a tour of the national monument's economic impact, the political cloud surrounding it and what we can expect once Zinke's decision comes down.

The Grand Staircase-Escalante, with its famous hoodoos, or columns, has long been at the center of a local fight over whether its federal designation hurts or helps the surrounding area. Bob Wick/BLM/Flickr hide caption

The Grand Staircase-Escalante, with its famous hoodoos, or columns, has long been at the center of a local fight over whether its federal designation hurts or helps the surrounding area.

So, what is the benefit or harm of having a national monument in your neighborhood?

According to Headwaters Economics, a Montana-based think tank that crunched the data on jobs and the economy around 17 of the national monuments under review, the effect is anywhere from nothing to a modest net positive.

Chris Mehl, the group's policy director, says that from 2001 to 2015, overall jobs in the communities around Grand Staircase, in particular, increased by 24 percent and personal income overall grew by 32 percent.

These jobs are believed to be mostly service based, in fields that include everything from health care to hospitality, outdoor recreation and tourism.

The monument lies within two rural counties in southern Utah, home to about 12,000 residents and about a half-dozen towns across an area that's nearly 10,000 square miles in size.

Mehl says the economies of rural Western communities like the one around Grand Staircase have changed dramatically, "with huge social impacts we're just coming to grips with." So other, larger economic factors may be involved.

"But there's no sign of an economic apocalypse here," he says.

Commissioners in rural Garfield County, Utah, have long seen it differently.

In 2015, they passed a resolution declaring a state of emergency, saying the monument had all but wiped out the natural resource-based economy in the area. They cited a remarkable 67 percent drop in enrollment at Escalante High School since the monument was designated, while other schools have suffered similar drops.

"We see markers that don't indicate a healthy economy," says Matthew Anderson of the Sutherland Institute, a Utah-based free market think tank. He argues that Headwaters' study doesn't tell the whole story.

President Bill Clinton, with Vice President Al Gore, signs his 1996 order designating the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah. Opponents continue to note that Clinton made this move while sitting at the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Doug Mills/AP hide caption

President Bill Clinton, with Vice President Al Gore, signs his 1996 order designating the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah. Opponents continue to note that Clinton made this move while sitting at the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Local anger still runs deep over President Bill Clinton's 1996 designation because it also effectively nixed a proposed coal mining operation. A Dutch mining firm's proposal could have brought in $100 million in new tax revenue and created about 600 jobs, according to state estimates at the time.

Anderson argues the types of jobs created by a national monument designation namely in recreation and tourism tend to be low-paying and seasonal, and he says these jobs don't always sustain families the way livestock grazing does. A national monument grandfathers existing activities like grazing leases but bars new ones.

Some residents throw cold water on the idea of shaky employment.

"We are awash in jobs," Blake Spalding, co-owner of a local grill, tells The Salt Lake Tribune. "What we need is people to fill them."

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke faced protesters while visiting the Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante last month in Utah as part of a review to determine their future status under the Trump administration. George Frey/Getty Images hide caption

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke faced protesters while visiting the Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante last month in Utah as part of a review to determine their future status under the Trump administration.

The debate around Grand Staircase by no means ends with the balance sheet.

Ninety-three percent of Garfield County is owned and controlled by the federal government. And for some detractors, like former Escalante Mayor Jerry Taylor, the federal presence feels akin to that of an unwelcome relative.

"We love our mother-in-law," he once said, according to E&E News. "But sometimes we don't want her to tell us how to run our house."

Those detractors have not forgotten how the monument was established in the first place: planned largely without input from state leaders and designated by Clinton at a signing ceremony that wasn't even in Utah.

"Remember," Zinke said during a visit to the state, according to The Tribune, "when this monument was formed, the governor of Utah read it in the paper."

As recently as February, Utah lawmakers called on Washington to reduce the size of the monument, citing "a negative impact on the prosperity, development, economy, custom, culture, heritage, educational opportunities, health, and well-being of local communities" among other grievances.

Nevertheless, when Zinke visited Grand Staircase last month, he was greeted by chants of demonstrators calling for him to "save our monument," the St. George Spectrum & Daily News notes.

The site flush with ancient artifacts and fossils that date back tens of millions of years has been lauded as "the Shangri-La for dinosaurs." And proponents defend its value not only for recreational visitors, but also for scientists.

"What we learn here matters to the entire West," Nicole Croft, executive director of Grand Staircase-Escalante Partners, tells E&E News.

The federal review of the Grand Staircase-Escalante, with its hiking attraction the Calf Creek Falls, and other national monuments may lie with the interpretation of a president's authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act. Chad Douglas/Flickr hide caption

The federal review of the Grand Staircase-Escalante, with its hiking attraction the Calf Creek Falls, and other national monuments may lie with the interpretation of a president's authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act.

The ultimate fate of the monuments is murky partly because a president's authority under the law that established them, the 1906 Antiquities Act, may be open to dispute.

"What's unclear right now is whether the president has the authority to undo what one of his predecessors has done," says Mark Squillace, a professor at the University of Colorado Law School. The act "essentially authorizes the president to proclaim, but not to modify or revoke, national monuments."

Squillace says only Congress has the clear authority to revoke a designation because Congress has authority over public property.

While some small monuments have been turned over to states, no precedent exists for the abolition of a national monument the size of Grand Staircase.

Because of that lack of clarity, one thing is fairly clear: Any order by Trump to shrink or nullify any monument will almost certainly end up in court. It is widely expected that environmentalists would immediately sue.

Squillace says the dispute could go all the way to the Supreme Court.

Even Zinke himself hinted at the uncertainty during his confirmation hearings earlier this year.

"The law is untested," he said.

Here is the original post:

What Utah's Canyon Country Can Tell Us About Trump's Monuments Review - NPR

The pursuit of transition to a knowledge economy in the context of low foreign direct investment is one of the main challenges facing President Hassan Rouhani since his reelection on May 19, 2017. Although the Iranian economy returned to positive growth in 2016 of about 6.4%, this rebound can largely be ascribed to the return to near-capacity oil exports after the UN Security Councils endorsement of the nuclear agreement in July 2015 led to the easing of international sanctions. According to the World Bank, integration of Irans banking sector with the global banking system has been slow since the sanctions were lifted. This has impeded foreign direct investment to Iran and trade, which will be crucial for the development of Irans non-oil sector, reads an article recently published in Malaysia Sum. Excepts follow:

Focus on Using Human Capital to Create Wealth The UNESCO Science Report recalls that the government first set its sights on moving from a resource-based economy to one based on knowledge in its 20-year Vision Plan (2005-25). This transition became a priority after international sanctions were progressively hardened from 2006 onwards and the oil embargo was tightened. In February 2014, Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei introduced the concept of Resistance Economy, a plan advocating reliance on domestic potentials and a lesser dependence on imports that reasserted key provisions of Vision 2025. Vision 2025 challenged policymakers to look beyond extractive industries to the countrys human capital for wealth creation. This led to the adoption of incentives to raise the number of university students and academics, on the one hand, and to stimulate problem-solving research and industrial research, on the other. For instance, in order to ensure that 50% of academic research was oriented toward socioeconomic needs and problem-solving, the Fifth Five-Year Economic Development Plan (2012-17) tied development to the orientation of research projects. It also made provision for research and technology centers to be set up on campus and for universities to develop linkages with industry. Vision 2025 foresaw an investment of $3.7 trillion by 2025 to finance the transition to a knowledge economy. It was projected that one-third of this amount will come from abroad but, so far, FDI has remained elusive. It has contributed less than 1% of GDP since 2006 and just 0.5% of GDP in 2014. Much of the $3.7 trillion earmarked in Vision 2025 is to go toward supporting investment in research and development by knowledge-based firms and the commercialization of research results. A law passed in 2010 provides an appropriate mechanism, the Innovation and Prosperity Fund. According to the funds president, Behzad Soltani, 4,600 billion rials ($171.4 million) had been allocated to 100 knowledge-based companies by late 2014. Public and private universities wishing to set up private firms may also apply to the fund. Domestic expenditure on research stood at 0.7% of GDP in 2008 and 0.3% of GDP in 2012. Iranian businesses contributed about 11% of the total in 2008. The governments limited budget is being directed toward supporting small innovative businesses, business incubators and science and technology parksenterprises that employ university graduates.

Surge in University Rolls In line with the goals of Vision 2025, policymakers have made a concerted effort to increase the number of students and academic researchers. To this end, the government raised its commitment to higher education to 1% of GDP in 2006. After peaking at this level, higher education spending stood at 0.86% of GDP in 2015. Higher education spending has resisted better than public expenditure on education overall. The latter peaked at 4.7% of GDP in 2007 before slipping to 2.9% of GDP in 2015. The result has seen a steep rise in tertiary enrolment. Between 2007 and 2013, student rolls swelled from 2.8 million to 4.4 million in the countrys public and private universities. Some 45% of students were enrolled in private universities in 2011. There were more women studying than men in 2007, a proportion that has since dropped back slightly to 48%. Enrolment has progressed in most fields. The most popular in 2013 were social sciences (1.9 million students, of whom 1.1 million were women) and engineering (1.5 million, of whom 373,415 were women). Women also made up two-thirds of medical students. One in eight graduates go on to enroll in a Masters/PhD program. This is comparable to the ratio in the Republic of Korea and Thailand (1 in 7) and Japan (1 in 10).

Science, Engineering Attracting More PhD Graduates The number of PhD graduates has progressed at a similar pace as university enrolment overall. Natural sciences and engineering have proved increasingly popular among both sexes, even if engineering remains a male-dominated field. In 2012, women made up one-third of PhD graduates, being drawn primarily to health (40% of PhD students), natural sciences (39%), agriculture (33%) and humanities and arts (31%). According to UNESCOs Institute for Statistics, 38% of Masters and PhD students were studying science and engineering fields in 2011. There has been an interesting evolution in the gender balance among PhD students. Whereas the share of female PhD graduates in health remained stable at 38-39% between 2007 and 2012, it rose in all three other broad fields. Most spectacular was the leap in female PhD graduates in agricultural sciences from 4% to 33%, but there was also a marked progression in science (from 28% to 39%) and engineering (from 8% to 16% of PhD students).

Surge in Research Pool According to the Institute for Statistics, the number of (full-time equivalent) researchers rose from 711 to 736 per million inhabitants between 2009 and 2010. This corresponds to an increase of more than 2,000 researchers, from 52,256 to 54,813. The world average is 1,083 per million inhabitants. One in four (26%) Iranian researchers is a woman, which is close to the world average (28%). In 2008, half of researchers joined the academia (51.5%), one-third in the government sector (33.6%) and just under one in seven in the business sector (15.0%). Within the business sector, 22% of researchers were women in 2013, the same proportion as in Ireland, Italy and Norway. The number of firms declaring research activities more than doubled between 2006 and 2011, from 30,935 to 64,642. The increasingly tough sanctions regime oriented the Iranian economy toward the domestic market and, by erecting barriers to foreign imports, encouraged knowledge-based enterprises to localize production.

See the article here:

Iran in Pursuit of Knowledge Economy - Financial Tribune