Tommy Hough on the Destruction of Grand Staircase Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments

The Trump administration's wholly unnecessary slashing of Grand Staircase Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments in Utah — the second such evisceration of these monuments in nine years — marks the largest rollback of federal public lands protection in our nation's history. It also undoes the restoration of both Monuments' footprints after they were restored by President Biden in 2021. At the signing ceremony that sealed the fate of Grand Staircase Escalante and Bears Ears, Trump was surrounded by the nine duplicitous Utah politicians who cheered the move and even lied to their own constituents about their plans to do so, including Governor Spencer Cox and the state's entire GOP congressional delegation, particularly long-time public lands enemy Senator Mike Lee, who cackled while Trump lied about imaginary restrictions on access and the ability to "walk" in National Monuments, as though Monuments are fenced off. Nothing could be further from the truth. They and other National Monuments are, in fact, open to all. Trump and the Utah Republicans' destruction of Grand Staircase Escalante and Bears Ears ignores the wishes of 74 percent of Utahns, and over 90 percent of Americans who want the Monuments preserved at the sizes they were established. Trump's proclamation also ignores the Monuments' role as outdoor destinations popular with hikers, backpackers, and hunters throughout the west, and the contributions they make as regional economic engines. And Trump's move spits in the face of the thousands of citizen and community groups, Tribes, and individual Americans who volunteered over the course of decades to protect these public lands for posterity, nature, and in the great American preservation tradition. Not that Trump and his friends care. There's bigger money to be made for their benefactors in destroying the ecosystems, habitats, and species that Grand Staircase Escalante, Bears Ears, and other National Monuments were wisely and carefully set aside to protect from gross exploitation in the first place. In fact, Grand Staircase Escalante recently survived a Mike Lee-led attempt in the Senate to gut it via the seldom-used Congressional Review Act. On a more tragic note, the first-of-its-kind Bears Ears Intertribal Commission — a coalition of five Utah tribes that served as a co-management partner — was dissolved with the stroke of a Sharpie as part of Trump's executive proclamation. Trump's duplicity stabs the five Tribes in the back, and further whitewashes the Native American legacy behind Bears Ears' designation. Iconic American locales like Joshua Tree, Death Valley, the Grand Canyon, and Olympic National Parks were all first protected as National Monuments in the 1930s, and eventually became National Parks by way of congressional action in subsequent years. Imagine a post-1945 president meddling with the size and footprint of those monuments decades after the fact, just as Trump has done now in decimating Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante, 10 and 30 years old respectively. Throughout their time as National Monuments, there has never been a public outcry or groundswell of support for reducing or eradicating the boundaries of Grand Staircase Escalante or Bears Ears — only calls for their preservation. Only the same deadbeat Republicans, shilling for the same deep-pocketed resource extractors, have worked for the last decade to ensure their destruction. So why are Trump and his GOP allies doing this? Because they loathe preservation. They reject the legacy of American conservation, and see National Monuments and other protected public lands as impediments to their resource extraction benefactors being able to mine, drill, and log at will. Since Trump was inaugurated for a second term, he and his anti-conservation allies have been moving at light speed to undo every major American environmental accomplishment of the last 70 years. And now they're hoping to reach even further back into U.S. history. With the 90 percent slashings in size of Grand Staircase Escalante and Bears Ears, Trump and his Project 2025 benefactors at the Heritage Foundation hope to prompt a court challenge in which they can ultimately litigate the 1906 Antiquities Act before the Supreme Court. Signed into law 120 years ago by President Theodore Roosevelt to enable presidents to quickly designate National Monuments on federal public land when Congress is moving too slowly — or deliberately dragging its feet — to pass National Park legislation for areas facing imminent threats, the Antiquities Act has long been a target for right-wing extremists, weird fringe groups like the Heritage Foundation, and anti-public land zealots like Mike Lee. Call and write your two U.S. senators and your U.S. representative today, and put the pressure on. Let them know this move by Trump and his corporate bootlickers is reprehensible, and that policy must immediately be pursued to undo it. Visit TommyHough.com for more.