Basin and Range National Monument is a national monument of the United States spanning approximately of remote, undeveloped mountains and valleys in

Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincol ...

and Nye counties in southeastern

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

.Secretary Jewell Applauds President Obama's Designation of Basin and Range National Monument in Nevada: President's Action Preserves Sweeping Landscapes & Ancient Rock Art, Protects Existing Ranching & Military Uses
(press release), United States Department of the Interior (July 10, 2015). It is described as "one of the emptiest spaces in a state famous for its emptiness."

Creation

The national monument was created by a proclamation issued on July 10, 2015 by President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

under the

Antiquities Act The Antiquities Act of 1906 (, , ), is an act that was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt on June 8, 1906. This law gives the President of the United States the authority to, by presidential pro ...

. Obama also signed proclamations creating two other national monuments (the

Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument is a national monument of the United States comprising of the California Coast Ranges in Napa, Yolo, Solano, Lake, Colusa, Glenn and Mendocino counties in northern California.northern California Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...

and the Waco Mammoth National Monument in

central Texas Central Texas is a region in the U.S. state of Texas surrounding Austin and roughly bordered by San Saba to Bryan and San Marcos to Hillsboro. Central Texas overlaps with and includes part of the Texas Hill Country and corresponds to a ...

) the same day. Basin and Range was also the second national monument to be created in Nevada in less than eight months; the

Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument, a United States National Monument near Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada, was established in 2014 to protect Ice Age paleontological discoveries. The monument is administered by the National Park Serv ...

had been designated in 2014.

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

Harry Reid Harry Mason Reid Jr. (; December 2, 1939 – December 28, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Nevada from 1987 to 2017. He led the Senate Democratic Caucus from 2005 to 2017 and was the Sena ...

and Representative

Dina Titus Alice Costandina Titus (born May 23, 1950) is an American political scientist and politician who has been the United States representative for since 2013. She served as the U.S. representative for from 2009 to 2011, when she was defeated by Joe ...

, both Democrats of Nevada, were major proponents of protecting the Basin and Range area; before the area's designation by executive action, they had sponsored a bill to protect the Basin and Range area (withdrawing it from mining and other uses) by legislation.Steve Tetreault & Henry Brean
A done deal, Obama to create Basin and Range monument
''Las Vegas Review-Journal'' (July 9, 2015). The campaign to designate Basin and Range as a national monument had the support of Nevada's largest employer,

MGM Resorts International MGM Resorts International is an American global hospitality and entertainment company operating destination resorts in Las Vegas, Massachusetts, Detroit, Mississippi, Maryland, and New Jersey, including Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, and ...

, as well as

Wynn Resorts Wynn or wyn (; also spelled wen, ƿynn, and ƿen) is a letter of the Old English alphabet, where it is used to represent the sound . History The letter "W" While the earliest Old English texts represent this phoneme with the digraph , ...

Barrick Gold Corporation Barrick Gold Corporation is a mining company that produces gold and copper with 16 operating sites in 13 countries. It is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It has mining operations in Argentina, Canada, Chile, Côte d'Ivoire, Democrat ...

, Rockwood Lithium North America, the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce, and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Some members of the local population opposed the designation and complained of limited public involvement. The creation of the national monument was applauded by Reid, Titus, and

Secretary of the Interior Secretary of the Interior may refer to: * Secretary of the Interior (Mexico) * Interior Secretary of Pakistan * Secretary of the Interior and Local Government (Philippines) * United States Secretary of the Interior See also *Interior ministry An ...

Sally Jewell Sarah Margaret "Sally" Roffey Jewell (born February 21, 1956) is a British-American businessperson who served as the 51st United States secretary of the interior in the Obama administration from 2013 to 2017. Jewell was born in London and move ...

.Quotes about Basin and Range National Monument in Nevada
NewsOK (July 10, 2015). The

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who b ...

also praised the designation, stating that the area was "a fitting addition to our protected public lands" because it is "one of the best examples of the spectacular basins framed by Nevada’s breathtaking mountain ranges, a resting place for historic artifacts critical to understanding our nation's Native American cultural history, and home to unique plants and animals, some found only in Nevada and this region." Conversely, three Republican U.S. Representatives from Nevada,

Mark Amodei Mark Eugene Amodei ( ; born June 12, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. representative for Nevada's 2nd congressional district since 2011. The only Republican in Nevada's congressional delegation since 2019, Amodei ...

Joe Heck Joseph John Heck (born October 30, 1961) is an American physician and politician who served as the United States representative for Nevada's 3rd congressional district from 2011 to 2017. Heck is a United States Army major general and a board-cer ...

, and Cresent Hardy, condemned the new monument, and Republican U.S. Representative

Rob Bishop Robert William Bishop (born July 13, 1951) is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 2003 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, he became the dean of Utah's congressional delegation after the retirement of ...

, the chairman of the

House Committee on Natural Resources The U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources or Natural Resources Committee (often referred to as simply Resources) is a Congressional committee of the United States House of Representatives. Originally called the Committee on Interior and Ins ...

, called it a "surreptitious land grab" by the Obama administration. The creation of the national monument was a setback for long-controversial plans to open a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.Cy Ryan
Why new national monument could derail plans for nuke dump at Yucca
''Las Vegas Sun'' (July 10, 2015). Previously, a U.S. Department of Energy study had looked at possible railroad routes to carry

radioactive waste Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapon ...

Yucca Mountain Yucca Mountain is a mountain in Nevada, near its border with California, approximately northwest of Las Vegas. Located in the Great Basin, Yucca Mountain is east of the Amargosa Desert, south of the Nevada Test and Training Range and in the ...

and had proposed a Caliente-to-Yucca Mountain route, of which would run through an area later designated at Basin and Range National Monument. Robert Halstead, the executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the proclamation of the Basin and Range National Monument was the "final nail in the coffin" of the railroad project and would "really complicate life" for the

Nuclear Regulatory Commission The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with protecting public health and safety related to nuclear energy. Established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, the NRC began opera ...

Description and significance

The Basin and Range National Monument area has

geological Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other E ...

, ecological, cultural, historical, paleoecological, seismological,

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

, and

paleoclimatological Paleoclimatology (American and British English spelling differences, British spelling, palaeoclimatology) is the study of climates for which direct measurements were not taken. As instrumental records only span a tiny part of Earth's history, the ...

significance. The area is located in a transitional region between the

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily ...

and the

Sagebrush Steppe Sagebrush steppe is a type of shrub-steppe, a plant community characterized by the presence of shrubs, and usually dominated by sagebrush, any of several species in the genus '' Artemisia''.Great Basin The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California. It is noted fo ...

. Major features within the national monument include: Garden Valley and Coal Valley; the Worthington Mountains, containing the Worthington Mountains Wilderness Area; the Golden Gate Range; the Seaman Range; the Mount Irish Range; the Hiko Narrows; the White River Narrows; and the

Shooting Gallery Shooting gallery may refer to: Firearms and amusements *Shooting gallery (carnival game), a facility for shooting live firearms or for shooting recreational guns within amusement parks, arcades, carnivals, or fairgrounds * Shooting range, is a ...

rock art In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type also m ...

site. Native American rock art at the site is about 4,000 years old. The national monument consists largely of existing

federal land Federal lands are lands in the United States owned by the federal government. Pursuant to the Property Clause of the United States Constitution ( Article 4, section 3, clause 2), Congress has the power to retain, buy, sell, and regulate federal l ...

s, managed by

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's ...

of the

United States Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the ma ...

both before and after the national monument's creation. Within the monument boundary there are privately owned lands including

Michael Heizer Michael Heizer (born 1944) is an American land artist specializing in large-scale and site-specific sculptures. Working largely outside the confines of the traditional art spaces of galleries and museums, Heizer has redefined sculpture in terms ...

's ''

City A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

'', a massive earth art piece similar in size to the

National Mall The National Mall is a landscaped park near the downtown area of Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. It contains and borders a number of museums of the Smithsonian Institution, art galleries, cultural institutions, and va ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. At the time of the monument's creation, the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 19 ...

held a

conservation easement In the United States, a conservation easement (also called conservation covenant, conservation restriction or conservation servitude) is a power invested in a qualified private land conservation organization (often called a "land trust") or gover ...

over the area of the still-incomplete artwork; the museum plans to donate this easement to the United States when the work is completed. The proclamation allows for continued historic uses of the area (e.g., hunting and fishing) under preexisting regulations. The proclamation also does not affect

grazing In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to roam around and consume wild vegetations in order to convert the otherwise indigestible (by human gut) cellulose within grass and ot ...

operations within the monument (including "use of

motorized vehicle A motor vehicle, also known as motorized vehicle or automotive vehicle, is a self-propelled land vehicle, commonly wheeled, that does not operate on rails (such as trains or trams) and is used for the transportation of people or cargo. The vehi ...

s, construction and maintenance of

water infrastructure A water supply network or water supply system is a system of engineered hydrologic and hydraulic components that provide water supply. A water supply system typically includes the following: # A drainage basin (see water purification – source ...

, and construction of fences and other range improvements"). The proclamation also does not affect U.S. military uses of monument; the military will continue to use the monument's land and

airspace Airspace is the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters or, more generally, any specific three-dimensional portion of the atmosphere. It is not the same as aerospace, which is th ...

for

emergency response Emergency services and rescue services are organizations that ensure public safety and health by addressing and resolving different emergencies. Some of these agencies exist solely for addressing certain types of emergencies, while others deal wi ...

and

training Training is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge or fitness that relate to specific useful competencies. Training has specific goals of improving one's capability, capacity, productivity and performance. I ...

. Fauna of significance in the national monument include

desert bighorn sheep The desert bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis nelsoni'') is a subspecies of bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') that is native to the deserts of the United States' intermountain west and southwestern regions, as well as northwestern Mexico. The ...

golden eagle The golden eagle (''Aquila chrysaetos'') is a bird of prey living in the Northern Hemisphere. It is the most widely distributed species of eagle. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. They are one of the best-known bird ...

, and many species of bat,

lizard Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia altho ...

, and snake.

References

External links

BLM−Bureau of Land Management.gov: official websiteBLM.gov: Map of Basin and Range National Monument
— ''with photos''
Friends of Basin and Range National Monument
{{National Monuments of the United States Bureau of Land Management National Monuments in Nevada Protected areas of Lincoln County, Nevada Protected areas of Nye County, Nevada Protected areas of the Great Basin Protected areas of the Mojave Desert 2015 establishments in Nevada Protected areas established in 2015 National Monuments designated by Barack Obama