Will President-elect Biden restore the original boundaries of Grand Staircase-Escalante (above at Metate Arch) and Bears Ears national monuments?/BLM
Among the speculated items on President-elect Joe Biden's to-do list that is expected to get quick action is an executive order rescinding President Trump's dismantling of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, action that possibly could spur even more legal battles over these unique landscapes.
"His campaign has been clear that restoring the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments is a top priority and we're very grateful for that," said Steve Bloch, the legal director for Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. "That's our expectation, that the Biden administration will restore the monuments to their original if not expanded glory. The monuments suffered under the Trump administration, and we're looking forward to having the protections that come along with monument status restored and the Interior Department managing them like the national treasures that they are."
Bears Ears, a 1.35-million-acre rugged redrock landscape rich in Native American history and lore, was declared a national monument by President Barack Obama in December 2016. The crooked boundary of the monument touched Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Canyonlands National Park, and Natural Bridges National Monument.
Grand Staircase, meanwhile, was established by President Bill Clinton in September 1996 when he set aside 1.9 million acres in southern Utah. The monument is extremely rich in paleontological resources, with nearly 150 scientists later saying the monument “hosts one of the highest concentrations of dinosaur fossils in the world,” and that only 6 percent has been surveyed, and that “the potential for future discovery is tremendous.”
In 2017 Trump tossed aside the actions Clinton and Obama took under The Antiquities Act and cut Grand Staircase by a bit more than 1 million acres and broke it into three monuments known as Grand Staircase, Escalante Canyons, and Kaiparowits. Bears Ears National Monument shrank to a bit more than 201,000 acres in the Indian Creek and Shash Jáa units from its original size of 1.3 million acres.
The reduction of the two national monuments represents the largest reduction of any protected area in the United States, according to a study that came out earlier this fall.
Citadel Ruins in Bears Ears National Monument/BLM file
But on the very day that Trump stood on the steps of Utah's Capitol in Salt Lake City and announced the breakup of those monuments, groups announced their intent to challenge his authority.
The case still resides in a federal courtroom in Washington, D.C. Whether Biden signs an executive order on his first day in office or soon thereafter that reverses Trump's moves and spurs additional litigation remains to be seen.
Bloch wasn't sure exactly how the Biden administration might go about reversing Trump's severing of the monuments.
"I think there are a variety of paths in front of the administration. It's hard to speculate what they're going to do," he said Tuesday during a phone call. "One thing is clear, the Antiquities Act gives the president the authority to establish national monuments, the same way that Clinton and Obama established the original Grand Staircase and Bears Ears. So that's surely one of the options on the table, is to establish those monuments.
"And it's hard to predict and I'm not really in a good spot to look into a crystal ball to what option they're going to find the most appealing," added Bloch.
The back-and-forth over protection for these areas represents just the latest fray over public lands in Utah, and elsewhere in the West, that are viewed either as natural resource-rich and cultural landscapes to be protected or wastelands to be pilfered for what might lie beneath the surface.
"The original Bears Ears and Grand Staircase National Monuments represented an opportunity to restore damaged landscapes, enforce the preservation of antiquities, and educate visitors about the meaning of these lands to science, history, and present-day cultures," writes Salt Lake City historian Frederick Swanson in his new book, Wonders of Sand and Stone, A History of Utah's National Parks and Monuments. "The diminished monuments of today continue the past approach of fragmented and spotty protection of important public resources.
"A different approach would examine the canyon country region on a broad scale, looking for common purposes that might help to heal old divisions," Swanson continues. "This would require all parties to take a hard look at how we have historically treated the land and its longtime inhabitants, and then chart new directions that encompass the entire range of values we seek in our public lands. Such a process, though largely untried, offers perhaps the best hope that Utah's national parks and monuments will remain as living examples of the magnificence of Earth's creation."
Whether Utahns of differing opinions on these landscapes can sit down at a table and come to some satisfactory terms remains to be seen. At the same time, noted Bloch, "the establishment of national monuments was supposed to be a permanent and durable protection for the landscape. It's, like so many things, Trump interrupted that, and so I'm not sure I agree with that framing of the ping-ponging" of legal battles.
"As to the larger issue, you would like to think that we could get to that point (of finding common purposes with public lands in Utah), but I'm frankly pessimistic about it. But maybe I shouldn't be."
Comments
Two other optinos exist: 1) Let the court rule in the cases before it. If the law is as strong as the Tribes and other organizations think, then the court should rule that shrinking monuments after they've been created is illegal, thus undoing the actions and setting a precedent for future administrations.
2) If that fails, or even in addition, Congress could pass the law introduced as the Antiquities Act of 2019 (needing to be reintroduced in the next Congress). That bill clearly states that only Congress, not a president, may shrink mounments and gives Congressionally-designated status to the monuments and their boundaries created by executive proclamation since Grand Staircase-Escalante, in addition to enlarging Bears Ears to the original proposal by the Tribes.. (Pres. Obama designated only about 2/3 of their prooposal.)
Either of these would put an end to potential "ping-ponging" in the future.
Good ideas for long term resolution. I have only hiked trails along Utah Hwy 12 but hope to see more of the fantastic region.
I only hope that this will be resolved with putting all the land back onto the parks. Greed does terrible things.
Simply stated. Most of the people who live nearby to both of these areas DO NOT want the land as national monuments. Much more opposition to them rather than for.
Sorry, Tim C; but, simply stated, that is not true! Most of the nearby people who are part of your group, who think in lockstep with your group, who your group is willing to accept as fellow human beings, and who you don't shun because they don't belong to your group might not be in favor of any public lands that aren't tightly under the control of the folks in power in Salt Lake. However, there are facts and groups that you are conveniently and self-servingly ignoring.
First, there are folks in your communities who are tired of the boom-and-bust delusions being pimped by the mouthpieces of the extractive industries and who see a more sustainable future in the preservation and careful stewardship of these lands. Those people certainly do not feel free to be as vocal in your cult-controlled communities; but, they are there and they support national monument protections for these lands, especially after watching how well the State of Utah has supported protection of them over the past few years.
Second, there are indigenous peoples in the area that, again, certainly do not feel free to be as vocal in your cult-controlled communities. But, again, they're there; they're deeply supportive of national monument protections for these lands; and, although they are and always have been shunned and conveniently treated as invisible to you and your group, they have rights and a stake in these lands, especially given that, despite the false and delusional "pioneer" mythology to the contrary, they were there first.
Third, these lands are federal lands and DO NOT belong just to you, your group, the people who live nearby, or the folks in power in Salt Lake. Yes, all have a stake, just like every American has a stake; but, whether Mike Lee, Rob Bishop, Chris Stewart, or even Orrin Hatch like it or not, the majority of Americans rule in our democracy. With regard to whether these lands should be protected as national monuments, I believe the clear outcome of the recent election overwhelmingly demonstrates that you and your group have lost the argument ...resoundingly.
This area can be protected and used much like Yellowstone. I have lived in utah all my life and watched greed and money destroy our beautiful mountains. Ski resorts in the wasatch . Kennecott blasting away the oquirrh range. Keep it protected or it will be lost forever.
the majority of Americans rule in our democracy.
Hump, I think you need a little lesson in history and political theory. We are not a democracy, we are a representative republic -thankfully.
Well, bless your heart, ecbuck. I try not to avoid ever being so arrogant as to deny a possible need for "a little lesson in history and political theory" or anything else. I'm always open to learning things.
But, I'm afraid that, when you start preaching that America is "not a democracy" and especially how you're thankful for it, you're really not offering any valid or honorable lesson in history or political theory; you're actually spreading twisted and seditious disinformation designed to undermine American principles, normalize disloyalty to our country, and, frankly, nurture what is actually a growing potential for violent rightwing treason. Given your history of lavish and theatrical claims about your principles, your belief in personal responsibility, and your devotion to the Constitution; it all now seems so, well, just phony, shallow, dishonest, and hypocritical ...and, all this after you've apparently run for public office in Colorado. Did you not understand what you were doing when you ran? Were you harboring these beliefs, but keeping them secret, the whole time? If you had won, were you going to step right up and take the oath of office and just not mention that you don't believe in American democracy and are thankful you don't?
My only hope is that you were blind, stinking, drunk when you posted that last comment and will recant it as soon as you sober up and realize what you've done. As for Mike Lee, I've been told his political career, what passed for his career in public service, is over, maybe even in Utah.