Shrinking monuments
PRESIDENT TRUMP DECLARES BIG REDUCTIONS TO TWO NATIONAL SITES IN UTAH
SALT LAKE CITY — President Donald Trump on Monday took the rare step of scaling back two national monuments in Utah, in a move cheered by Republican leaders who lobbied him to undo protections they considered overly broad.
The decision marks the first time in a half century that a president has undone these types of land protections. Tribal and environmental groups oppose the decision and began filing lawsuits Monday in a bid to stop Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
Trump made the plan official in a speech at the Utah Capitol, where he signed proclamations to shrink the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments.
“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.”
Environmental and tribal groups say the designations are needed to protect archaeological and cultural resources, especially the more than 2,030-square-mile Bears Ears site.
About 3,000 demonstrators lined up near the state Capitol to protest Trump’s announcement. Some held signs that said, “Keep your tiny hands off our public lands,” and they chanted, “Lock him up!” A smaller group gathered in support.
Bears Ears, created last December by then-President Barack Obama, will be reduced by about 85 percent, to 315 square miles.
Grand Staircase-Escalante, designated in 1996 by then-President Bill Clinton, will be reduced from nearly 3,000 square miles to 1,569 square miles.
Both were among 27 monuments that Trump ordered Zinke to review this year.
In New Mexico, the Trump administration is considering changes to the Organ MountainsDesert Peaks National Monument near Las Cruces and the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument near Taos. An Interior Department spokeswoman said Monday that it’s unclear when a decision will be made about the New Mexico monuments.
New Mexico’s senators, Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, both Democrats, denounced Trump’s action and vowed to support legal efforts to block the move.
“The president’s unprecedented move to drastically shrink Bears Ears and Grand StaircaseEscalante national monuments in southern Utah tears at the heart of America’s conservation legacy and is a direct assault on sacred lands and tribal sovereignty,” Heinrich said.
Udall, vice chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said the decision is “deeply insulting” to Native Americans.
“The president is lifting protections for tens of thousands of Native American sacred sites, putting them at risk, and opening them for coal, oil and gas development,” Udall said. “Trump’s decision to rescind protections and create new boundaries was made in secret — the public had no opportunity to review the plans or the decision-making process, and the tribes were not consulted.”
Mark Gallegos, the mayor of Questa and a Taos County commissioner, on Monday urged the White House to reconsider.
“Nearly every local elected official, including myself, supported the designations of our national monuments,” Gallegos said.
No president has tried to eliminate a monument, but some have redrawn boundaries, according to the National Park Service, most recently in 1963, when then-President John F. Kennedy slightly downsized Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico.