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."
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