Huffman Leads 71 House Democrats in Demanding Trump Admin Reverse Illegal Cuts to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante

Washington, D.C. – Today, House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) led 71 other House Democrats in a letter to President Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum condemning the July 13 proclamations that stripped nearly three million acres of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments of protection and opened the door to mining, drilling and new mineral leasing on those lands.

“This is an illegal attack on the integrity and legacy of the Antiquities Act as well as Tribal co-stewardship of public lands,” the members wrote.

The proclamations cut each monument by more than 90 percent and disbanded the Bears Ears Commission, the co-management partnership between the Bureau of Land Management and five Tribal Nations. The members note that the Interior Department had promised to meet with the Commission before considering changes to the monument, and no meeting ever took place. They also point to reports of insider trading and preemptive claim staking by the mining industry inside the former boundaries.

The members write that the Antiquities Act “does not grant presidents the power to undo or reduce national monuments established by their predecessors,” and that previous attempts to shrink both monuments were immediately challenged in federal court.

“Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments are national treasures,” the members wrote. “The American people deserve public lands policy grounded in law, science, respect for Tribal sovereignty, and stewardship—not political decisions against the desires of the vast majority of Americans.”

Read the full letter here.

Background
President Trump’s July 13 proclamations cut Bears Ears National Monument from 1.36 million acres to 121,096 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument from 1.87 million to 181,541 acres. The cuts go far beyond what Trump attempted in his first term, when he reduced Grand Staircase-Escalante by 860,000 acres and Bears Ears by 1.15 million acres. President Biden restored both monuments to their full boundaries in 2021.

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