There is absolutely no reason to justify naming these national monuments other than to restrict the rights of mineral owners, both private and state, to mine useful minerals from these lands.
That's about what I figure. Quartz vein gold deposits are the sort that can be mined by a small operation, especially when the gold is free milling. Most of the deposits in Nevada (think Newmont) are disseminated and recovered by heap leaching methods.
From the article, Obama has shut down 757,578 square miles of land to development and use for non-recreational purposes. At 640 acres a square mile, 484,849,920 acres that American taxpayers get to shell out to lie fallow.
I do not buy that this is done to preserve cultural sites: the best way to do that is to keep yer mouth shut about them. All the hoopla just draws attention, and those who may go diddy-bopping about such places who have no ties to the land nor appreciation for it might put their mark over the marks of those who left theirs centuries ago. If you want to protect petroglyphs, you don't tell, document them, have the locations written down, but don't advertise.
As for the mines, yes, they are history, but there are a significant number of buildings in any eastern city older than those mines. No one is shutting them down.
