Look West: Public lands and energy news from the Center for Western Priorities


** Utah Attorney General sues President Biden over move to restore Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments
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Thursday, August 25, 2022
Cedar Mesa overlooking Valley of the Gods at Bears Ears National Monument. Source: Bob Wick, BLM Flickr ([link removed])

Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes followed through on his promise to file a lawsuit ([link removed]) over President Biden's decision to reinstate the boundaries of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. The lawsuit, filed in federal court Wednesday, claims the president violated the Antiquities Act of 1906 ([link removed]) by reinstating the monuments. The Antiquities Act gives the president the authority to designate national monuments and has been used by both Republican and Democratic presidents.

“By filing a lawsuit against the federal government over these monuments, the State of Utah is wasting taxpayer money trying to undermine something that is evident to anyone who spends time in these remarkable landscapes—that Bears Ears and Grand Staircase deserve protection," Center for Western Priorities Executive Director Jennifer Rokala said in a statement ([link removed]) . "Both legal and historical precedent support the creation of these landscape-scale monuments, and public opinion is with them as well.”

Utah no doubt hopes to send its case to the U.S. Supreme Court. But there is ample precedent for landscape-scale national monuments, in which the entire landscape is considered an “object of interest,” such as the Grand Canyon (protected in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt ([link removed]) ). The courts have in the past also refused to hear cases over landscape-scale monument designations, such as Jackson Hole National Monument ([link removed]) (designated in 1943 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, now part of Grand Teton National Park), upholding the power of the president to designate landscape-scale monuments. Additionally, the Supreme Court has refused to hear cases ([link removed].) regarding the legality of protecting natural,
rather than solely man-made, objects using the Antiquities Act, further strengthening the president’s authority to create these monuments.

Finally, 60 percent of Utah voters said they supported the protection of the Bears Ears landscape as a national monument in Colorado College’s 2022 State of the Rockies poll ([link removed]) .
Quick hits


** Utah AG mounting legal challenge to Biden’s order restoring Bears Ears and Grand Staircase monuments
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Associated Press ([link removed]) | National Public Radio ([link removed]) | The Hill ([link removed]) | Fox 13 ([link removed]) | Salt Lake Tribune ([link removed]) | Center Square ([link removed]) | Courthouse News Service ([link removed])
| Deseret News ([link removed])


** Watchdog blasts Zinke for lack of 'candor'
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E&E News ([link removed])


** Tarantula tunnels under Colorado highways may promote mating, stop squishing
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Denver Post ([link removed])


** Report: Forest fires burn twice as many trees as two decades ago
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Washington Post ([link removed])


** Wildfire smoke is choking Indigenous communities
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Grist ([link removed])


** Coal industry rattled by two consecutive legal losses
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WyoFile ([link removed]) | Casper Star-Tribune ([link removed])


** Xcel Energy will stop burning coal by 2030. Here’s their plan for clean energy projects in Colorado
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Colorado Public Radio ([link removed])


** Climate change, fossil fuel policies top issues in New Mexico election
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Carlsbad Current-Argus ([link removed])
Quote of the day
” Young people are resilient, and they can shake off things like that. But not children with asthma, and not elders with COPD, or any kind of pre-existing medical conditions. Those people tend to find themselves in the emergency room pretty fast.”
—Caleb Minthorn ([link removed]) , a technician at the Office of Air Quality for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
Picture this


** @ArchesNPS ([link removed])
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The side-blotched lizard (Uta stansburiana) does not fear the heat since its reptilian cold blood needs the warmth of the sun to survive. Due to its small size of 4-6 inches, this lizard heats up quickly, allowing it to be active on warm winter days. #WildlifeWednesday ([link removed])

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