Documents show that former Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke was meeting with uranium company executives well before he was asked to review the boundaries of Bears Ears monument. Will you donate to help save Bears Ears from destructive mining, and support all of our work to protect public lands and the environment? DONATE:
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Anonymous,

In 2017, President Trump shrank the boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument by more than a million acres -- a massive 85 percent reduction.[1]

If you've wondered, "Who could that be for?" there's no need to give it another thought.

Documents show that an Interior Department official met with representatives from a uranium mining firm about Bears Ears before President Trump asked for the monument boundaries to be reviewed -- and when the Trump administration announced the new boundaries, every mining claim that firm asked for was suddenly removed from protection.[2]

The Interior Department report on Bears Ears gave the uranium industry everything it wanted and more, and the monument should be immediately returned to its original size. Will you donate to help save Bears Ears from destructive mining, and support all of our work to protect public lands and the environment?
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Bears Ears is a breathtaking collection of buttes, hiking trails, rock-climbing areas, and red rock canyons next to Canyonlands National Park. It is also the site of some of the world's oldest fossils, dating back 220 million years to the dawn of the dinosaurs.

That's why the Obama administration declared it a treasure in 2016 and protected it as a national monument.

But now many fossil sites are outside the new boundaries drawn by the White House, meaning they are at risk of being overrun by poaching collectors.[3] Even worse, the monument contains oil, coal, and uranium deposits -- and industry lobbyists pushed hard for Bears Ears to be shrunk to allow drilling and mining.

Evidence shows that the shrinking of the monument was done after a meeting with mining industry lobbyists. And whether this shrinkage was to please an industry or simply because the administration agreed in full, a natural treasure has been dramatically downsized to allow uranium mining.

A House of Representatives investigation revealed that an Interior Department official working for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke met with a uranium mining company early in 2017. That company requested that the claims for uranium mines be left out of the new Bears Ears boundaries -- and Zinke complied. But first, Zinke went on a "listening" tour in Utah to learn about Bears Ears without revealing the meeting.[4]

Let me be clear: at Environment Colorado, our issue is that Bears Ears Monument is a shadow of its former self. Whatever former Secretary Zinke's motivations were, the end result is that we're losing nature, and a beautiful stretch of our planet is now subject to uranium mining, one of the dirtiest, most dangerous energy sources imaginable.

Now citizen groups are petitioning the courts to throw out the new boundaries for Bears Ears and keep the monument protected as before.

We're still working to save the bees and stop offshore drilling, but right now we have to stop Bears Ears from being decimated by mining and oil drilling.

Will you donate today?
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Thank you,

Jeanne Bassett
Senior Associate

1. Nadja Popovich, "Bears Ears National Monument Is Shrinking. Here's What Is Being Cut." The New York Times, December 8, 2017.
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2. Jacob Holzman, "Seeking to shrink Bears Ears, uranium firm met with Interior before review," Roll Call, March 4, 2019.
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3. Brian Maffly, "A search for an ancient crocodile in Utah's Bears Ears leads to a major discovery of Triassic fossils," The Salt Lake Tribune, February 25, 2018.
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4. Jacob Holzman, "Seeking to shrink Bears Ears, uranium firm met with Interior before review," Roll Call, March 4, 2019.
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