■ The BLM has issued proposals for downsized Utah monuments.

Environmentalists decry reduced land protection

SALT LAKE CITY — The U.S. government has issued proposals for managing two national monuments in Utah that were downsized by President Donald Trump last year, saying its preference for one of the sites would be the “least restrictive to energy and mining development.”

The Bureau of Land Management last week listed four options for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, saying the energy and mining option is its top preference. The plan also would allow commercial timber harvesting to keep forests healthy.

The agency said the preferred plan among four options for the Bears Ears National Monument would allow for multiple uses, preserve similar recreation levels while adding “flexibility” for management decisions. Woodland harvesting would be allowed on about two-thirds of monument lands.

The public has 90 days to comment. In December, Trump downsized the Bears Ears National Monument by about 85 percent and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by nearly half following a review of 27 national monuments by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Trump earned cheers from Republican leaders in Utah who lobbied him to undo protections by Democratic presidents that they considered overly broad.

Conservation groups that described the Trump decision as the largest elimination of protected land in American history blasted the new proposals on Wednesday.

Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, said a cursory review of the thousands of pages of documents read like “a neon sign inviting drilling and mining companies into our national monuments.”

Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the concise summary of the Grand-Staircase plans make clear energy and mining will be a higher priority while the Bear Ears plans seem to indicate grazing and off road vehicles will have more prominence.

“More flexibility for management is code for less protection for the monument,” Spivak said. “We’ve already seen that Zinke and Trump cannot be trusted to protect our public lands.”

Kathleen Sgamma of the oil industry trade group Western Energy Alliance countered that the plans “respect the new boundaries of the monuments, preserving maximum conservation within them while enabling balanced, responsible development in the multiple-use areas outside the monuments.”

Rick Bowmer The Associated Press President Donald Trump on Dec. 4 in Salt Lake City holds a proclamation to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante national monuments. Management plans for the monuments were issued last week.