Biden to expand 2 Utah national monuments cut by Trump

SALT LAKE CITY – President Joe Biden volition grow 2 sprawling nationalist monuments successful Utah that person been astatine the halfway of long-running nationalist lands tug-of-war betwixt statesmanlike administrations, the state’s politician said Thursday.

Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, released a connection expressing disappointment successful the administration's determination to enlarge the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments, which were downsized importantly nether President Donald Trump.

They screen immense expanses of confederate Utah wherever reddish rocks uncover petroglyphs and cliff dwellings and distinctive duplicate buttes bulge from a grassy valley. The Trump medication had chopped Bears Ears, connected lands considered ineffable to Native American tribes, by 85% and slashed Grand Staircase-Escalante by astir half.

Cox's connection did not see specifics connected however overmuch of the monuments volition beryllium restored, and the White House and the U.S. Interior Department declined contiguous comment.

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The politician noted helium had offered to enactment with the medication connected a legislative solution.

“The president’s determination to enlarge the monuments again is simply a tragic missed accidental — it fails to supply certainty arsenic good arsenic the backing for instrumentality enforcement, research, and different protections which the monuments request and which lone Congressional enactment tin offer,” Cox said successful the connection released with different authorities leaders.

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney besides criticized Biden by saying successful a tweet helium had “squandered the accidental to physique consensus” and find a imperishable solution for the monuments.

“Yet again, Utah’s nationalist monuments are being utilized arsenic a governmental shot betwixt administrations,” Romney said Thursday. “The determination to re-expand the boundaries of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante is simply a devastating stroke to our state, section and tribal leaders and our delegation ... today’s ‘winner instrumentality all’ mentality moved america further distant from that goal."

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Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat and president of the House Natural Resources Committee, praised Biden successful a statement, saying the determination to reconstruct protections for the monuments shows his administration’s committedness to “conserving our nationalist lands and respecting the voices of Indigenous Peoples.”

“It’s clip to enactment Trump’s cynical actions successful the rear-view mirror," helium said.

Jennifer Rokala, enforcement manager of the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation group, besides applauded Biden’s determination and said she hopes it marks an archetypal measurement toward his extremity of conserving astatine slightest 30% of U.S. lands and water by 2030.

“Thank you, President Biden,” Rokala said successful a statement. “You person listened to Indigenous tribes and the American radical and ensured these landscapes volition beryllium protected for generations to come.”

Trump's cuts ironically accrued the nationalist attraction to Bears Ears, Rokala said. She called connected the national authorities to summation backing to negociate the scenery and grip increasing crowds.

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Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the archetypal Indigenous Cabinet secretary, traveled to Utah successful April to sojourn the monuments, becoming the latest national authoritative to measurement into what has been a yearslong nationalist lands battle. Haaland submitted her recommendations connected the onshore successful June.

Former President Barack Obama proclaimed Bears Ears a nationalist monument successful 2016. The tract was the archetypal to person the designation astatine the circumstantial petition of tribes.

The Bears Ears buttes, which place a grassy valley, are considered a spot of worship for galore tribes, according to Pat Gonzales-Rogers, enforcement manager of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition. The radical incudes the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni and Ute Indian Tribe.

The Trump administration’s reductions to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante paved the mode for imaginable ember mining and lipid and state drilling connected lands that were antecedently off-limits. However, enactment was constricted due to the fact that of marketplace forces.

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Conservative authorities leaders considered the size of some monuments U.S. authorities overreach and applauded the reductions.

Environmental, tribal, paleontological and outdoor recreation organizations, however, sued to reconstruct their archetypal boundaries, arguing presidents deficiency ineligible authorization to alteration monuments their predecessors created. Meanwhile, Republicans argued Democratic presidents person misused the Antiquities Act signed by President Theodore Roosevelt to designate monuments beyond what’s indispensable to support archaeological and taste resources.

The medication has said the determination to reappraisal the monuments was portion of an expansive program to tackle clime alteration and reverse the Trump administration’s “harmful” policies.

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