Trump dramatically reduces size of two Utah national monuments – JURIST

US President Donald Trump published on Monday double executive order (EO) reduce the size of two national monuments in Utah that contain ancient rock dwellings and petroglyphs by nearly three million acres, or about 90 percent each.

of first order reduce the size of Bears Ears National Monument from approximately 1.36 million hectares to 121,100 hectares, and the second REDUCES Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument from 1.87 million hectares to about 181,500 hectares. Trump calls the move “fair” and relayed in his EO fact sheet that it reduces the monuments to their appropriate sizes and allows for “common sense land use.”

His administration used Antiquities Law as their source of legal authority for the clearing of monuments, an act created for it protect federal lands declaring them national monumentsor preserved areas such as archaeological sites, historical monuments and cultural heritage sites. Specifically, Trump relied on the phrase “The President shall reserve the smallest area consistent with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected” as his authority to reduce the size of monuments.

The use of the law in this way has provoked reactions and legal debates such as the Supreme Court has caused confirmed the president’s ability to create these monuments, but has not ruled on the president’s authority to change the boundaries of existing monuments.

IN MEMORANDUM of EOs, Trump reinforced the narrative that he is returning the land to the people of Utah, stating that former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama “took the land from the people” when they designated Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears as national monuments. “You can’t do anything,” he said of the authorized uses of the land, “You can’t go hunting. You can’t go fishing. You can’t do anything. You practically can’t even walk on it.”

However, this sentiment fostered by Trump and other Utah lawmakers is false for him as well Bureau of Land Management the monuments are open for hiking, camping, hunting, fishing, horseback riding and in some areas rock climbing.

This is not the first time that Trump has tried to reduce the size of these historic sites. In 2017, during his first presidential term, he signed an order reducing the size of Bears Ears to 201,876 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante to about 1 million acres—much smaller reductions than those in its current orders.

Native nations represented by the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), along with environmental groups such as the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and Earthjustice immediately unsuspecting for the illegal reduction of the dimensions of the monuments, file multiple suits against the administration claiming that only Congress can change the size of a monument. While the lawsuits were pending, numerous mining and drilling claims were made in Bears Ears, urging then-President Joe Biden to reverse Trump’s actions and restoration of monuments in their original size. The lawsuits have been consolidated and remain active in U.S. District Court where they face one stay.

Environmental groups such as SUWA, Earthjustice and the Conservation Land Foundation have again vowed to take legal action against Trump for his “illegal” actions. SUWA shown in a press release that the reductions “make it clear that Utah is the epicenter of Republican efforts to dismantle and eradicate America’s public lands system,” and Earthjustice Redirected that the announcements are “a slap in the face to visitors to public lands across the country, as well as to local communities and tribes who have worked for years to protect these special places.”