Anonymous sources have told reporters that Pr*@%!^#t Trump will visit Utah Monday to announce how many hundreds of thousands of acres he plans to chop from two national monuments in Utah. He doesn’t plan to visit the monuments, and he doesn’t plan to stay in Salt Lake City overnight even though he could easily get in nine holes at The Country Club.
He probably won’t even still be in town when the first lawsuit is filed, something lawyers for the five tribes involved in getting Bears Ears National Monument approved say will happen the same day as his shrinkage announcement. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, a leading advocate of Bears Ears, has announced a rally and protest Saturday at the Utah Capitol. Juliet Eilperin reports:
“This illegal action will cement Trump’s legacy as one of the worst presidents in modern history,” said Randi Spivak, public lands program director at the advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity. “Trump has no clue how much people love these sacred and irreplaceable landscapes, but he’s about to find out. He’s shown his blatant disregard for public lands, Native Americans and the law. We look forward to seeing him in court.”
Based on reported comments two weeks ago of Ron Dean, a staffer in Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch’s office, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument—designated in 1996 by President Bill Clinton—could be cut nearly in half to 700,000 acres from its current 1.9 million. Meanwhile, Bears Ears National Monument, which was established a year ago by President Barack Obama, could be cut to 100,000-300,000 acres from its current 1.35 million.
The reductions are based on Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s recommendations after touring those and other monuments as his first duties after being confirmed by the Senate. Opposition to designating the monuments is strong among the state’s Republican politicians. Like many of their counterparts in other Western states, they have long sought to have federal land turned over to the states or at least not be protected against mining and other exploitation. They have complained that Utahns were not consulted enough when the monuments were designated, a grotesque assertion given the years of study and back and forth proposals.
While environmental advocates are suing and protesting, some foes of the monuments don’t think the White House is going far enough:
San Juan County Commission Chairman Bruce Adams said in an interview Tuesday that changing the size of Bears Ears was only “half the race,” because he and others want Congress to limit the president’s authority to designate protections on federal land under the Antiquities Act [of 1906, which authorizes presidents to designate monuments].
Whatever shrinkage the president announces, litigation is inevitable. Thomas Burr reports:
Environmentalists and tribes have said they will seek legal action to stop any changes, which they don’t believe the president can do under the 1906 Antiquities Act.
“The tribes view this as an affront to themselves and their own self-determination,” said Natalie Landreth, senior staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund. “All of us, all five tribes, will be suing jointly the day he makes an announcement.”
Five tribes — the Hopi, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni and the Ute Indian Tribe — make up the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition that advocated for the monument. Landreth said they have not determined which federal court the group would file the lawsuit in but that it would be about violating the Constitution’s separation of powers.
Although they oppose both monuments, Bears Ears was the designation that most angered foes of stronger protections for public lands. It is also the one that sparked joy among the Utes, Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni—all of whom have ancient ties to this land they view as sacred. The tribes worked in coalition with one another and non-Indian groups to get Bears Ears set aside. And for the first time ever, they have a guaranteed say in governing a monument. When President Obama announced the monument designation last year, Indian leaders were ecstatic. Robinson Meyer reported:
“It actually brought tears to my face,” said Eric Descheenie, a member of the Navajo nation and a congressman in the Arizona House of Representatives. “It’s so hard to even try to add up what this really means. At the end of the day, there’s only a certain place in this entire world, on earth, where we as indigenous peoples belong,” he said of Bears Ears.
Many environmental advocates and legal experts believe that acting to shrink the monuments will run afoul of the Federal Land Policy Management Act of 1976, which limits executive branch authority to change monument boundaries, and court cases relating to the Antiquities Act. But whichever way lower courts rule, it seems inevitable that the ultimate decision will end up in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court. About the outcome of that there are optimistic activists and those who are less so.