Sec. Haaland Recommends Biden Restore Bears' Ears, GSE NMs Now; GOP Whines About Executive Power
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has advised President Biden to restore sweeping environmental protections to three major national monuments that had been stripped away by former President Donald J. Trump. In a report sent to the White House earlier this month that has not been made public, Ms. Haaland recommended that Mr. Biden reinstate the original boundaries, which included millions of acres at Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante, two rugged and pristine expanses in Utah defined by red rock canyons, rich wildlife and archaeological treasures.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Spencer J. Cox of Utah confirmed Monday that Ms. Haaland had made the recommendations. Mr. Trump had sharply reduced the size of both national monuments at the urging of ranchers and many Republican leaders, opening them to mining, drilling and development. At the time, it was the largest rollback of federal land protection in the nation’s history.
Mr. Trump’s 2017 decision to slash Bears Ears by nearly 85 percent alarmed paleontologists, environmentalists and Native American groups, and several filed a legal challenge that is pending in federal court. Bears Ears is rich in fossils dating back hundreds of millions of years and is an important cultural landmark for tribal nations.
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Senator Mitt Romney, the Utah Republican, has said that he doesn’t want any president to determine the footprints of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, but rather that the borders should be determined by Congress. He is also a key member of a bipartisan group negotiating with the White House to win passage of a major infrastructure bill that is a legislative priority for Mr. Biden. The rest of Utah’s congressional delegation released a statement Monday urging Mr. Biden not to use his executive authority to change the dimensions of the monuments.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/climate/bears-ears-biden-haaland.html