There will be an action - lots of people - at the state capitol in Salt Lake City on Monday
Find out more below or internet clicks.
Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance
https://suwa.org/issues/bearsears/On Wednesday, December 28th, 2016, President Obama used his authority under the Antiquities Act to designate Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah.
The President’s action granted a new layer of protection to some of the most spectacular places in southern Utah. There is of course Cedar Mesa, with its incredible canyons running toward the San Juan River. There is White Canyon to the west of Natural Bridges. There are the Bears Ears themselves and the high ponderosa forests of Elk Ridge. To the north there’s Beef Basin and Indian Creek. The new monument withdraws Lockhart Basin, adjacent to Canyonlands National Park, from future energy leasing. Nearly 100,000 archaeological and cultural sites are now covered by the proclamation, including House on Fire and Moon House ruins.
Equally important, the proclamation elevates the voices of the Native American tribes who have ancestral ties to the region. The Bears Ears proposal was led by five Tribes—the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, Ute Mountain Ute, and Ute Indian Tribes. For the first time in American history, these Tribes will have a greater say in the management of these culturally important lands.
On Wednesday, December 28th, 2016, President Obama used his authority under the Antiquities Act to designate Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah.
The President’s action granted a new layer of protection to some of the most spectacular places in southern Utah. There is of course Cedar Mesa, with its incredible canyons running toward the San Juan River. There is White Canyon to the west of Natural Bridges. There are the Bears Ears themselves and the high ponderosa forests of Elk Ridge. To the north there’s Beef Basin and Indian Creek. The new monument withdraws Lockhart Basin, adjacent to Canyonlands National Park, from future energy leasing. Nearly 100,000 archaeological and cultural sites are now covered by the proclamation, including House on Fire and Moon House ruins.
Equally important, the proclamation elevates the voices of the Native American tribes who have ancestral ties to the region. The Bears Ears proposal was led by five Tribes—the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, Ute Mountain Ute, and Ute Indian Tribes. For the first time in American history, these Tribes will have a greater say in the management of these culturally important lands.
Unfortunately, Utah politicians are doing all they can to persuade the Trump administration to reduce or even rescind the monument. On June 12th, Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke issued an interim report recommending that Bears Ears National Monument be significantly reduced in size—a move that simultaneously dishonored Native American Tribes and ignored the input of hundreds of thousands of American citizens.
The public comment period for the Interior Department’s national monument review closed on July 10, 2017. More than 2 million comments favored leaving our national monuments intact.
https://bearsearscoalition.org/action/https://sierra.secure.force.com/actions/National?actionId=AR0072497Ryan Zinke -- a Congressman with a lifetime record of voting against the environment 96% of the time according to the League of Conservation Voters -- is now the head of the Department of the Interior. His confirmation jeopardizes the future of our public lands, and the people, wildlife, and economies that depend on them.
Now that our public lands face an uncertain future, many of the places President Obama protected are threatened once again. One of the first efforts by this pro-dirty fuels administration could be to jeopardize or even undo protections for Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah. These lands are sacred to five Native American tribes with ancestral and spiritual ties to these lands. We cannot allow this work to be undone.
Ask your members of Congress to tell Interior Secretary Zinke that Bears Ears National Monument must not be plundered for the financial benefit of the few.
http://bearsears.patagonia.comYour public lands are under threat. In April, the White House signed an executive order threatening to remove protections or shrink the boundaries of some of our country's most iconic national monuments, including Bears Ears. When he visits Utah next month, the president has said he will follow through on his threat
http://bearsears.patagonia.com/take-actionNative American Rights Fund
https://www.narf.org/cases/protecting-bears-ears-national-monument/Rising from the center of the southeastern Utah landscape and visible from every direction are twin buttes so distinctive that in each of the native languages of the region their name is the same: Hoon’Naqvut, Shash Jáa, Kwiyagatu Nukavachi, Ansh An Lashokdiwe, or “Bears Ears.” For hundreds of generations, native peoples lived in the surrounding deep sandstone canyons, desert mesas, and meadow mountaintops, which constitute one of the densest and most significant cultural landscapes in the United States. Abundant rock art, ancient cliff dwellings, ceremonial sites, and countless other artifacts provide an extraordinary archaeological and cultural record that is important to us all, but most notably the land is profoundly sacred to many Native American tribes, including the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah Ouray, Hopi Nation, and Zuni Tribe. – Presidential Proclamation – Establishment of the Bears Ears National Monument (Dec. 28, 2016)
November 10, 2017
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2017/11/10/commentary-donald-trump-is-not-welcome-in-utah/“We, the undersigned residents of the state of Utah, wish to express our strong opposition to the invitation of President Donald Trump to the state of Utah by Senator Orrin Hatch. It has been reported that President Trump will be visiting Utah in December, and by signing this letter, we express our concern that his presence in our home will disgrace and embarrass the state of Utah, and will add unnecessary fuel to the fire of an issue that is very personal for so many Utahns across the state.
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President Trump has proven hostile toward native and indigenous populations, LGBTQ+ communities, communities of color, religious minorities, disabled and chronically ill communities, women, refugees, immigrants, and many more underserved and marginalized groups. Our signatures below indicate that we will stand shoulder to shoulder as members and allies of these communities in opposition to the hatred and bigotry of the current administration.
National Geographic
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/12/leaked-maps-trump-shrinks-bears-ears-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monuments-spd/The brewing legal fight will likely reach the Supreme Court. The court will be asked to determine if the 1906 Antiquities Act, which grants the president power to create monuments, also grants presidential authority to abolish or reduce monuments. An opinion authored by President Franklin Roosevelt’s attorney general argued in 1938 that presidents have no such power to abolish monuments. That position has been accepted by all of Roosevelt’s successors until now.
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Trump’s decision also creates several other thorny legal and political issues regarding congressional powers and management of federal lands whose designation may change, says Robert Keiter, a University of Utah law professor and director of its Wallace Stegner Center of Land Resources and the Environment.
“When Congress adopted the Federal Land & Policy Management Act in 1976, it appeared to reserve to itself the power to modify or revoke national monument designations, which provides a powerful legal argument for monument supporters in any legal challenge to the president’s actions,” Keiter says.
In the case of Grand Staircase Escalante, Congress also has already adjusted its boundaries and written the changes into law.
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“Because Congress approved a massive land exchange with the state of Utah following designation of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, it has essentially ratified the boundaries of that monument, and the president does not have authority to override this congressional action, given that Article IV of the Constitution grants Congress—not the president—broad authority over the public lands.”
If Trump’s changes withstand a court challenge, then there’s the practical matter of managing federal land.
“The President’s monument reduction action invites future presidents to take similar actions to any monument they might dislike, and it invites other presidents to reverse these actions and reinstate the original boundaries, creating extraordinary uncertainty for public land managers and users,” Keiter says. “In short, this would amount to an intolerable situation for everyone.”
This story was updated at 7 pm on December 1, 2017, with info from Robert Keiter and additional background.
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