Trump shrinks Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante by roughly 2 million acres...
Source: The Washington Post
Trump shrinks Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante by roughly 2 million acres — the biggest cutback of protected federal lands
By Washington Post Staff December 4 at 2:39 PM
President Trump announced his decision on the two Utah sites during a trip Monday to Salt Lake City. The changes represent the most significant reductions by any president to designations made under the 1906 Antiquities Act and plunge the administration into uncharted legal territory. New court challenges are a certainty.
Native tribes and conservationists immediately decried the president’s action as putting sacred relics and thousands of archaeologically and culturally significant areas at risk. But conservative lawmakers, especially those in Utah who had pushed hard for much smaller designations, were elated.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/12/04/trump-shrinks-bears-ears-grand-staircase-escalante-by-roughly-2-million-acres-the-biggest-cutback-of-protected-federal-lands/?pushid=5a25a475b0a05c1d00000092&tidr=notifi_push_breaking-news&ut
Trump slashes Utah land protections
BY TIMOTHY CAMA AND DEVIN HENRY - 12/04/17 02:39 PM EST
President Trump on Monday cut large swaths from two massive, controversial national monuments in Utah, opening areas to potential activities like oil drilling, mining and grazing.
The reductions, announced on a trip to the Beehive State, represent a strong rebuke of former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and open Trump to near-certain lawsuits in an area that is largely legally untested.
Trump signed proclamations scaling back Obama’s 1.4-million-acre Bears Ears National Monument to 220,000 acres — an 84 percent reduction — and Clinton’s 1.9-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to 1 million acres — a reduction by nearly half. It’s the largest-ever rollback of protected areas in history, environmental groups say.
Both monuments on federally owned land in the southern part of the state have long been opposed by Utah leaders. Obama and Clinton created them under the Antiquities Act, which gives presidents authority to unilaterally protect any federally owned area from development, with few restrictions.
more
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/363149-trump-slashes-utah-land-protections
= new reply since forum marked as read
As the Alaskan nit-wit would say. 
Just another giveaway to the wealthy. Now they can rape the land for it's natural resources, and the rest of us? We can take our big "tax cut" and buy some View-Master slides of what these beautiful areas of our nation used to look like.
The Orange Shit-Weasel strikes again. 
He was positively drooling and having an orgasm.
whassup? 
Cottonwood Narrows
Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument
Utah
(Photo by DemoTex - 2015)
