Even though several lawsuits challenging the shrinking of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by the Trump regime are working their way through the federal courts, the Interior Department on Wednesday signed off on plans issued by the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service to allow mining, oil and gas drilling, and grazing on land that is within the Obama-set boundaries of the two monuments.
Critics believe the courts will overturn Trump’s 2017 move to shrink Bears Ears from 1.3 million acres to about 228,000 and Grand Staircase from 1.9 million acres to about 1 million. A lower court decision could come this spring or early summer. When the draft plans appeared last July, Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva, the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, called it a “cynical attempt” to codify the shrunken monuments. He told Greenwire reporter Jennifer Yachnin, "President Trump's campaign to dismantle our national monuments is illegal and unpopular, and the courts are going to overturn it. This president is willing to inflict lasting damage on our country to benefit his industry boosters, and anyone who invests a dollar in drilling or digging in the newly opened areas should be prepared to lose their bet against public opinion and the strength of our legal system."
The premise of those lawsuits is that Trump exceeded his authority when he shrank the monuments, a move that was not only a flip-off to Obama but also calculated to open the door to more public lands for his fossil fuel pals to exploit. Two years ago Eric Lipton and Lisa Friedman at The New York Times concluded that this was in fact a key reason for shrinking the monuments.
The widespread view of most legal authorities is that presidents are authorized under the 1906 Antiquities Act to establish national monuments pretty much at will, but that they cannot shrink monuments established by previous presidents. A change in public lands management law in the 1970s reinforces that legal point of view. Given the state of the federal judiciary, however, a rejection of Trump’s action is by no means certain.
In an email, Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said, “It’s the height of arrogance for Trump to rush through final decisions on what’s left of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante while we’re fighting his illegal evisceration of these national monuments in court. Trump is eroding vital protections for these spectacular landscapes. We won’t rest until all of these public lands are safeguarded for future generations.”
Meanwhile, on January 29, a warning was issued to companies thinking of sinking money into operations on public lands being newly opened by the White House:
A group of U.S. institutional investors urged energy, timber and mining companies on Wednesday not to take advantage of Trump administration rollbacks of environmental regulations, such as moving operations into public lands that are being opened up.
The investors representing nearly $113 billion in assets sent a letter to 58 companies saying that firms seeking to make use of the rule changes put themselves and their investors at "significant risk of public backlash and stranded assets, should these actions be legally challenged or protections be restored by the courts or by future administrations.”
The letter came at time when investors are being pushed to pay more attention to environmental issues. Larry Fink, the chief executive at the giant BlackRock Inc. asset manager, warned company boards in January that they need focus on the impact of the climate crisis or be confronted by investors worried that their future financial well-being could be at risk from company practices that no longer make sense in a world ever-more affected by global warming.
Of the investor letter, Grijalva told Reuters that companies “should know that trying to take advantage of President Trump’s environmental rollbacks is bound to be an unpopular, expensive mistake.”
Utah Diné Bikéyah, a group heavily involved in getting Bears Ears designated, questioned the claim that the BLM made about having consulted with tribes during the planning process:
"The ongoing failure to meaningfully consult with tribes is an indicator of the treatment of Indigenous Peoples in the United States. This is part of a broader problem that leaves Indigenous Peoples out of decisions for these sacred lands,” stated Honor Keeler (Cherokee), assistant director for Utah Diné Bikéyah. “Inevitably, the protection of Indigenous religious freedoms, wildlife, cultural items and practices, villages, sacred places, and burial places are ignored. We have seen this not only at Bears Ears, but at sacred places like San Francisco Peaks, Oak Flats and Apache Leap, Standing Rock, and many other places.”
“Indigenous voices are often spoken over, reinterpreted, quieted, hushed, or misinterpreted,” Keeler added. “Indigenous Peoples have been here —since time immemorial—and long before the establishment of the United States, yet we are continually silenced and this pattern cannot continue."