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Legal scholars say that the Trump Administration's management plans for the reduced Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments likely violate federal law. The management plans, which were released in early February, formalize monument reductions by President Trump and open the areas removed from the monument to mining, drilling, and logging. The presidential order, which eliminated over 2 million acres from the two monuments, remains challenged in court.
The new legal analysis of the plans concludes that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) doesn't go far enough to protect the monument resources identified, as current law requires that the BLM prioritize resource protection over other uses. Additionally, researchers found that the "no action alternative" used by the BLM in development of the Bears Ears plan didn't include the appropriate baseline protections for National Monuments.
For both monuments, the BLM chose to recommend the least protective plan out of proposed alternatives.
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They're disturbing sacred areas. It's disgraceful to see how much blasting is going on and how the remnants of our ancestors are being disturbed by that blasting... For them to say they have not disturbed anything is total ignorance on their part."
