Trump officially opens formerly protected Utah national monuments for business

The Interior Department released final plans Thursday for two national monuments in Utah that President Trump moved to radically shrink two years ago. Under the final plans, about 2 million acres that were once part of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments would be open to mineral extraction and ranching. Public lands advocates, Native American groups, and conservationists whose lawsuits to prevent the downsizing of the national monuments are still being litigated in court, called foul.

Former President Bill Clinton cellared Grand Staircase-Escalante a national monument in 1996 and former President Barack Obama protected Bears Ears in 2016, both using the 1906 Antiquities Act. Trump proposed cutting Grand Staircase-Escalante by half and Bears Ears by 85 percent. "But the law itself is unclear on who actually has the power to abolish or shrink national monument boundaries," NPR notes, "and legal experts say it has traditionally been the responsibility of Congress to modify the size of public lands."

Casey Hammond, acting assistant secretary of land, minerals, and mineral management at the Interior Department, said Thursday the Trump administration has no intention to hold off on opening the monuments to ranchers and oil, gas, and coal companies. "If we stopped and waited for every piece of litigation to be resolved, we would never be able to do much of anything around here," he told reporters.

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Groups who oppose the de-protection of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears have a few more months to get an injunction, The Washington Post reports. "The earliest the government could approve new mining claims and other kinds of development is Oct. 1, because of language Congress adopted in a spending bill."