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.
WASHINGTON — Environmental protections at all three monuments had been stripped by former President Donald Trump.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.
His actions were among a series of steps the administration has taken to protect public lands and waters, the White House said, including moves to halt oil leasing in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and prevent road-building in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, the nation's largest federal forest.Biden's plan also restores protections in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument in the Atlantic Ocean, southeast of Cape Cod.
“Yet again, Utah’s national monuments are being used as a political football between administrations,” Romney said Thursday. “The decision to re-expand the boundaries of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante is a devastating blow to our state, local and tribal leaders and our delegation ... today’s ‘winner take all’ mentality moved us further away from that goal."
Haaland, the first Indigenous Cabinet secretary, traveled to Utah in April to visit the monuments, becoming the latest federal official to step into what has been a yearslong public lands battle. She submitted her recommendations on the monuments in June. The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, which pushed for its restoration, has said the monument's twin buttes are considered a place of worship for many tribes. The group incudes the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni and Ute Indian Tribe.
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