Trump shrinks Utah national monuments
Almost 2 million acres rolled back; conservation groups vow to fight
WASHINGTON – President Trump signed two proclamations Monday that shrink federally protected lands in Utah by about 2 million acres — the largest rollback of national monument designations in history.
The Bears Ears National Monument will shrink 85% to 201,876 acres, and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument will be cut by 39% to 1 million acres.
The proclamations effectively split the two vast swaths of federally protected lands into five much smaller monuments. The changes will take effect in 60 days.
Trump’s decision to scale back the size of those monuments marks the most aggressive presidential effort to roll back national monument protections in U.S. history. In addition to shrinking the size of the two monuments, Trump lifted restrictions on motorized vehicles and livestock grazing within the smaller boundaries.
Trump portrayed the move as a victory for states’ rights and local control, but conservation groups called it the beginning of open season on federal lands.
Trump said previous presidents overstepped their authority in declaring vast tracts of Western lands off-limits, abusing the “purpose, spirit and intent” of a century-old law known as the Antiquities Act. That law requires presidents to limit the monument designation to “the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”
“These abuses of the Antiquities Act give enormous power to faraway bureaucrats at the expense of the people who actually live here, work here and make this place their home,” Trump said in Salt Lake City Monday.
“With the action I’m taking today, we will not only give back your voice over the use of this land, we will also restore your access and your enjoyment. Public lands will once again be for public use, because we know that people who are free to use their land and enjoy their land are the people most determined to conserve their land,” he said.
Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke recommended that Trump vastly reduce the size of the monuments and seek congressional authorization to turn over the remaining landmarks to be co-managed with Native American tribes.
The recommendation came as a result of an executive order Trump signed in April asking for a review of his predecessors’ use of the Antiquities Act to designate federal lands as national monuments. That designation can protect those lands from development, mining and drilling.
Zinke said his review looked at 150 monuments, 27 of which got the most scrutiny. The details of that report will be released Tuesday, he said.
Tribal groups called Trump’s action a “shameful attack” on lands considered sacred to American Indians. “Bears Ears isn’t just about a few artifacts in isolated locations,” said Shaun Chapoose, a member of the Ute tribe, which advocated for the creation of the monument in the 1990s. “The Bears Ears region is a cultural landscape — a place to nurture our families in our traditions.”
Tribal and environmental groups condemned the decision and promised to fight it in court, questioning whether the president can rescind a national monument without an act of Congress. The last president to use his power to reduce the size of a monument was John F. Kennedy in 1963.
Unlike national parks, which are established by Congress, national monuments can be designated either by Congress or the president. President Obama was particularly active in designating monuments.
“We know that people who are free to use their land and enjoy their land are the people most determined to conserve their land.”
President Trump