Biden to restore three national monuments in Utah and New England

 

Image credit accesswdun

President Joe Biden will restore two sprawling national monuments in Utah that have been at the center of a long-running public lands dispute, and a separate marine conservation area in New England that recently has been used for commercial fishing.

The monuments cover vast expanses of southern Utah where red rocks reveal petroglyphs and cliff dwellings and distinctive buttes bulge from a grassy valley. Former President Donald Trump invoked the century-old Antiquities Act to cut 2 million acres from the two monuments, calling restrictions on mining and other energy production a “massive land grab” that “should never have happened.”

The White House announced the changes Thursday night ahead of a ceremony expected Friday.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, expressed disappointment in Biden’s decision to restore Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments, which the Trump administration downsized significantly in 2017. He and other Republicans in Utah called it "disappointing, though not surprising" in a joint statement.

Trump's maneuvers made mineral extraction possible on the land considered sacred to five tribes, including the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, Ute, and Ute Mountain Ute tribes.