Conservation:
Interior secretary begins a four-day trip to Utah as part of a reassessment of national monuments.
SALT LAKE CITY — Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke started a four-day Utah trip Sunday to assess whether 3.2 million acres of national monuments in the state’s southern red rock region should be scaled down or even rescinded.
The re-evaluation of the new Bears Ears National Monument on sacred tribal lands and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, created in 1996, is part of an executive order signed last month by President Trump’s calling for a review of 27 national monuments established by several former presidents.
The Bears Ears monument, a source of ire for Utah’s conservative leadership, is a top priority in the review. Zinke has been tasked with making a recommendation on that monument by June 10, about 2 ½ months before a final report about all the monuments.
Utah Republican leaders, led by Sen. Orrin Hatch, campaigned hard to get Trump to take a second look a monument designated by President Barack Obama near the end of his term. Hatch and others contend the monument designation is a layer of unnecessary federal control that hurts local economies by closing the area to new energy development.
Zinke was spending Sunday in Salt Lake City before traveling Monday to southeastern Utah to spend time in the Bears Ears area. On Wednesday, he’ll be near the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
Natasha Hales, the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition lead staffer, said members plan to tell Zinke about their history with the Bears Ears land and the landscape’s sacred importance. They also plan to reiterate that they will take legal action to defend the monument.
“The Utah congressional delegation is cherrypicking a few voices in opposition to this, but there’s overwhelming support for this,” Hales said. “We wanted to take Secretary Zinke out on the ground with our people and show him around, but that invitation was never extended.”
The monument review is rooted in the belief by Trump and other critics that a law created by President Theodore Roosevelt to designate the monument has been improperly used to protect wide expanses of lands instead of places with particular historical or archaeological value.
Environmental groups have pledged to file lawsuits if Trump attempts to rescind monuments, which would be unprecedented.
The review includes sites in California: Berryessa Snow Mountain, Carrizo Plain, Giant Sequoia, Mojave Trails, Sand to Snow and San Gabriel Mountains.