President Donald Trump signs
Reduction of 2 Democratic declarations for Utah draws praise, protests
the hat of Bruce Adams, chairman of the San Juan County Commission, after speaking Monday in Salt Lake City about his decision to shrink the size of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
SALT LAKE CITY — President Donald Trump on Monday drastically scaled back two national monuments established in Utah by his Democratic predecessors, the largest reduction of public lands protection in U.S. history.
Trump’s move to shrink the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by more than 1.1 million acres and more than 800,000 acres, respectively, immediately sparked an outpouring of praise from conservative lawmakers, as well as activists’ protests outside the White House and in Utah. It also plunges the Trump administration into uncharted legal territory since no president has sought to modify monuments established under the 1906 Antiquities Act in more than half a century.
Earthjustice filed the first of several expected lawsuits Monday, calling the reduction of Grand Staircase-Escalante an abuse of the president’s power that jeopardizes a “Dinosaur Shangri-la” full of fossils. Some of the dinosaur fossils sit on a plateau that is home to one of the country’s largest known coal reserves, which could now be open to mining. The organization is representing eight conservation groups.
American Indian leaders said they expect to file a lawsuit challenging the Bears Ears decision soon.
Patagonia President and Chief Executive Officer Rose Marcario said the outdoor-apparel company will join an expected court fight against the monument reduction, which she described as the “largest elimination of protected land in American history.”
No president has tried to eliminate a monument, but some have reduced or redrawn the boundaries on 18 occasions, according to the National Park Service. The most recent instance came in 1963, when President John F. Kennedy slightly downsized Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico.
Trump’s decision removes about 85 percent of the designation of Bears Ears and nearly 46 percent of that for Grand Staircase-Escalante, land that potentially could now be leased for energy exploration or opened for specific activities such as motorized vehicle use.
Trump told a rally in Salt Lake City that he came to “reverse federal overreach” and took dramatic action “because some people think that the natural resources of Utah should be controlled by a small handful of very distant bureaucrats located in Washington. And guess what? They’re wrong.”
“They don’t know your land, and truly, they don’t care for your land like you do,” he added. “But from now on, that won’t matter.”
Even before Trump made the announcement as part of a day trip to the state, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association President Craig Uden was hailing the resized designations.
Conservation advocates and tribal representatives have for months been preparing legal briefs that aim to block the changes in federal court.
Doug Wheeler, a partner at the firm Hogan Lovells who represents the Conservation Lands Foundation, Utah Dine Bikeyah and other groups, said the “watershed” moment on this issue came with the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act. “Congress made very clear, as a matter of law, that they intend to delegate only that which has been expressly delegated in terms of management of federal lands,” he said — which would mean a president can establish a monument under the Antiquities Act but not “rescind or substantially reduce” a site, he added.
Despite this legal uncertainty, Trump and his deputies have worked to address the concerns raised by Utah politicians such as Republican U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch and executives in the mining, ranching, and oil and gas industries. In April, he signed an executive order instructing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review more than two dozen monuments, and he tailored the document so it would include Grand Staircase-Escalante, which President Bill Clinton designated in 1996.
Both Trump and Zinke implied Monday that monument designations had impeded public access to these sites: “Our public land is for the public to use, not special interests,” Zinke said.
But Outdoor Industry Association Executive Director Amy Roberts said in an interview that the notion “is flatout wrong” and that business thrived in the 20 years since Grand Staircase-Escalante.
“Unfortunately, there’s a risk now that those people’s livelihoods are going to be threatened as people hear the monument’s cut in half and wonder whether it’s worth visiting,” she said.
San Juan County Commission Chairman Bruce Adams, who had opposed the Bears Ears designation by President Barack Obama, said last week that he hoped the tourism boost his county had experienced in the past year would continue.
“Whoever’s in charge of managing the monument will come up with some places for people to visit, and visit respectfully,” he said.