President Donald Trump
Groups join lawsuit after president restores ‘the rights of this land’ to Utah
scales back two sprawling national monuments in Utah. He is cheered by Republican leaders who lobbied him to undo protections they contend close off areas to energy development.
SALT LAKE CITY — President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Monday to scale back two sprawling national monuments in Utah, pledging to “reverse federal overreach and restore the rights of this land to your citizens.”
Trump made his plans official during a speech at the state Capitol, where he was cheered by the state’s Republican leaders who lobbied him to undo protections they contend are overly broad and close off the area to energy development and other access.
Environmental and tribal groups urge preservation of the monuments to protect important archaeological and cultural resources, especially the Bears Ears National Monument, a more than 1.3 million-acre site in southeastern Utah that features thousands of Native American artifacts, including ancient cliff dwellings and petroglyphs. The first of several expected lawsuits came Monday.
“Some people think that the natural resources of Utah should be controlled by a small handful of very distant bureaucrats located in Washington,” Trump said. “And guess what? They’re wrong.”
Roughly 3,000 demonstrators lined up near the state Capitol protesting Trump’s announcement. The protesters held signs that said, “Keep your tiny hands off our public lands,” and they chanted, “Lock him up!” A smaller group gathered in support of Trump’s decision, including some who said they favor potential drilling or mining there that could create jobs.
The Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments were among a group of 27 monuments that Trump ordered Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review this year.
Bears Ears, created last year by President Barack Obama, will be reduced to 201,876 acres. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, designated in 1996, will be reduced from nearly 1.9 million acres to 1,003,863 acres.
Earthjustice filed suit Monday, calling the reduction of Grand StaircaseEscalante 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.
Native American leaders said they expect to file a lawsuit challenging the Bears Ears decision soon.
Zinke accompanied Trump on Monday aboard Air Force One, as did Utah’s Republican senators, Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee. Hatch and other Utah Republican leaders pushed Trump to launch the review, saying the monuments declared by Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton locked up too much federal land.
Trump exited the plane with Hatch and was greeted by cheers from a crowd assembled for the arrival.
Asked Monday if he wanted Hatch to run for an eighth term in 2018, Trump replied, “Yes.” Trump commented while touring a food distribution center run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Hatch, 83, has not publicly declared his plans.
Trump said while leaving the White House that the monument announcement is “something that the state of Utah and others have wanted to be done for many, many years.” He said it is “so important for states’ rights and so important for the people of Utah.”
In December, shortly before leaving office, Obama irritated Utah Republicans by creating the Bears Ears National Monument on land sacred to Native Americans.
The president signed an executive order in April directing Zinke to review the protections.
Trump is able to upend the protections under the 1906 Antiquities Act, which gives the president broad authority to declare federal lands as monuments and restrict their use.
Trump said at the time that he had spoken to state and local leaders “who are gravely concerned about this massive federal land grab. And it’s gotten worse and worse and worse, and now we’re going to free it up, which is what should have happened in the first place. This should never have happened.”
The move marks the first time in a half century that a president has undone these types of land protections. And it could be the first of many changes to come.
Zinke has also recommended that Nevada’s Gold Butte and Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou monuments be reduced in size, though details remain unclear.