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Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Law Professor Enumerates Flaws With President's Monument Modifications

President Trump clearly exceeded his authority when he lopped 2 million acres off of two national monuments in Utah, according to a law professor who closely examined past modifications to national monuments as well as powers given presidents under The Antiquities Act along with overarching Constitutional authorities and congressional jurisdiction.

Traveler's View | Bears Ears And Grand Staircase-Escalante Are Today's Hetch Hetchy

Early in the 20th century there was a fight over the fate of the Hetch Hetchy Valley at Yosemite National Park. Would it remain an amazing, waterfall-rimmed valley that so very well complemented the Yosemite Valley, or would it be given over to a reservoir to meet San Francisco's utilitarian needs? The battle for wildness, of course, was lost at Hetch Hetchy. Today the battle is being repeated in Utah, where wildness and sacredness at Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments are being tossed aside not so much for utilitarianism as for profiteering.

Proposed Management Plans For Utah Monuments Released, Draw Criticism

Proposed management plans for two national monuments in southern Utah that were reduced in size by President Trump and their surrounding lands would increase air quality impacts, pose a greater threat than other alternatives to cultural resources, not manage any acres to protect wilderness qualities while make more lands available to mining and livestock grazing.

BLM Supports Increased Coal Mining Near Bryce Canyon, Cedar Breaks, Grand Staircase-Escalante

Though demand for coal nationally and in Utah is on the decline, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is recommending expansion of an open pit mine near Bryce Canyon National Park and Cedar Breaks and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments that would impact night skies, adversely impact nearby towns, and likely destroy "a large number of significant fossils."

Canadian Mining Company Looks To Grand Staircase-Escalante For Copper, Cobalt

A hard rock mine that shut down when President Clinton established the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah in 1996 could soon be back in operation, as President Trump's realignment of the monument places the mine outside its boundaries and a Canadian-based mining company has purchased the rights to it.

Op-Ed | President Trump, Please Read ‘Desert Solitaire’

In a 1973 TV spot, the United States Forest Service sage Smokey Bear admonished that “one careless second with a match and America the beautiful becomes America the ugly.” So what would Smokey say now when a few careless seconds with a pen allowed President Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to remove protections from two million acres of precious American wilderness? If courts uphold Trump’s executive orders of last December, they would reduce southern Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments by 85 and 46 percent, respectively, constituting the biggest rollback of federally protected land in American history.

U.S. Veterans Call On Trump To Defend National Monuments

After putting their lives on the line to protect the United States and the values it stands for, more than 1,000 American military veterans — including retired high-ranking officers — signed a letter to the commander-in-chief urging him to “protect the public lands and traditions for which we fought, specifically by maintaining the boundaries and protections of the national monuments that were reviewed by Secretary Zinke.”

BLM Moving Forward To Develop Resource Management Plans For Redrawn National Monuments

Although there are pending lawsuits that challenge the legitimacy of President Trump's dismantling of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is moving forward to develop management plans that could allow mining within the original boundaries of the monuments.

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