President Trump announced Monday in Salt Lake City that he will reduce the size of Utah's Bears Ears National Monument by roughly 84 percent and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by nearly half. The pair of moves amounts to what environmental advocates call the largest-ever rollback of protected land, The Hill reports.
The Bears Ears monument was designated by former President Barack Obama in late 2016, after indigenous peoples fought for its recognition, The New York Times explains. Its protected land spans 1.3 million acres. Trump's decision to shrink the monument had been widely anticipated and is expected to trigger a legal fight by the five tribes who originally lobbied the Obama administration — the Navajo Nation, Ute Indian Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and Hopi — for its protection. (Grand Staircase-Escalante was designated by former President Bill Clinton in 1996.)
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"Public lands will once again be for public use," Trump said. A lawsuit against the administration opposing the reductions could come as soon as Monday afternoon. Watch a portion of Trump's announcement below. Kimberly Alters
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