Trump expected to shrink protected lands in Utah: reports

Then-U.S. interior secretary Deb Haaland, centre, visits Bears Ears National Monument near Blanding, Utah, on April 8, 2021. (Rick Bowmer / AP Photo)

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order Monday drastically shrinking two national monuments in Utah, paving the way for fossil fuel extraction and mining.

Sources told Utah-based news outlets Deseret News and ABC4 the signing was expected at 4:30 pm, though the White House has not confirmed it.

The issue has become something of a political football. Previously, the Republican president had targeted the two monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, during his first term in 2017, before his Democratic successor, Joe Biden, restored them to their original boundaries in 2021.

The executive orders are the latest in a broader pattern of stripping protections for public lands and wildlife to benefit extractive industries. Last week, the administration finalized a rule redefining the word “harm” under the Endangered Species Act to exclude habitat destruction.

The fossil-rich Grand Staircase-Escalante, which covers 1.9 million acres, was established as a monument in 1996 under then-president Bill Clinton. Bears Ears, which covers 1.35 million acres, was proclaimed in 2016 under then-president Barack Obama on the basis of its cultural sites sacred to Indigenous tribes.

Opponents contend Trump’s moves are illegal under the Antiquities Act of 1906.

“It’s crystal clear: The language of the act provides the president power to create national monuments,” Thomas Delehanty, a lawyer for Earthjustice, told AFP. “It does not include a corresponding power to diminish or eliminate national monuments. Instead, only Congress can do that, with the passage of a new law.”

But the Department of Justice last year issued an opinion stating that presidents can not only shrink monuments but abolish them altogether.

Earthjustice sued the first Trump administration over the issue on behalf of conservation groups, and Delehanty said they were prepared to reactivate that litigation, which is being heard in a Washington court, or file a new case.

Republican-controlled Utah, meanwhile, has an ongoing case challenging Biden’s restoration of the monuments. In court documents, the state has cited the presence of rare earth minerals, including uranium, as well as untapped energy resources, as assets that could be exploited.

Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program, told AFP that public lands are “part of the fabric of the United States,” drawing tourism and fueling economic growth in remote regions, becoming a “renewable economic resource.”