Today's decision by
the School Land Board to postpone the sale of the Christmas Mountains for ninety
days is encouraging news. Yesterday,
Commissioner Patterson announced that he would push the two other members of the
School Land Board to accept one of the two private bids for the Christmas
Mountains and gave an ultimatum to the National Park Service to change their
policy on hunting or lose their right to try to add the property to Big Bend
National Park. That did not happen, so clearly the other two board members are
not comfortable with this deal. We thank Todd Barth and David Herrmann for
respecting the strong public opposition to this sale and for seeking out a
better solution.
It's unclear whether the Board is making hunting and
firearms a precondition of NPS acquisition, as Patterson wants, but it's a good
sign that the other two board members didn't go along with his
plan. The
fact the school land board didn't explicitly require hunting as a precondition
in their resolution seems to indicate they are backing away from that position.
If that's the case, we think it's great news and the future
looks a lot brighter for the Christmas Mountains becoming part of Big Bend
National Park.
We look forward to
working with the School Land Board, the National Park Service, and Congress in the coming months to
find a final solution that will keep the Christmas Mountains in public hands and
that will maintain the integrity of Texas' word.
