99 percent of comments tell Trump to keep Maines monument
Source: Bangor Daily News
For nearly two months, the U.S. Department of the Interior has asked the American public what should be done with the 27 national monuments under review by the Trump administration. More than 99 percent of the responses that have mentioned Maine’s Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument favor keeping it, according to one of the state’s largest environmental organizations.
All but 67 of the 192,052 comments about Maine’s monument that were submitted to Interior’s website from May 11 to July 4 supported it, Lisa Pohlmann, executive director of National Resources Council of Maine, said at a press conference at Epic Sports in downtown Bangor.
At issue is whether then-President Barack Obama created Katahdin Woods last August without adequate public outreach to relevant stakeholders. Interior officials set the 60-day public comment period to answer that question, which was posed by President Donald Trump. The site at regulations.gov will stop taking comments on Monday.
“The public sees this as a settled matter and [does] not want the monument taken away or rescinded in any fashion,” said Pohlmann, whose staff reviewed every comment.
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Read more: http://bangordailynews.com/2017/07/08/outdoors/99-percent-of-comments-tell-trump-to-keep-maines-monument/