Colorado Leaders Urge Biden to Create National Monument in Rockies

If state leaders have their way, Colorado could soon be home to a new national monument.

In a letter, released on Friday, August 26 to President Joe Biden, U.S. Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, Governor Jared Polis, and U.S. Representative Joe Neguse requested that the area of land in the mountains just outside of Vail, known as Camp Hale, be turned into a national monument to protect the land for future generations and prevent any oil fracking in the area.

Tom Vilsack toured Camp Hale with Bennet, Hickenlooper, Polis, and Neguse, which, if designated by Biden, will be the very first monument decided by the Biden administration. Camp Hale was a military training camp for winter warfare in World War II and is part of the reason for Colorado’s booming skiing industry today. By passing this bill, Biden would preserve Camp Hale, a 1,456.8-acre piece of land, along with the 1,000 buildings there. This section of land, included in 400,000 more acres of wildlife and land, would be protected under the CORE Act. The CORE (Colorado Outdoor Recreation & Economy) Act is currently under review in Senate.

The four congressmen formally requested that Biden create this monument, writing, “We will continue our fight to pass the CORE Act to deliver permanent conservation for the areas featured in the legislation but ask for your help in the interim to offer administrative protections modeled after the bill.”

Many republicans have opposed both the CORE Act and the request to turn Camp Hale into a monument. U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert called the bill a “partisan land-grab promoted by big-city democrats who aren’t affected by the land-use bureaucracy that they are shoving down rural Colorado’s throat.”

The CORE Act would protect those 400,000 acres of land from oil fracking and mining, as well as various developments, such as roads and streets other than the ones already there.

Picture courtesy of Colorado Encyclopedia.