Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has recommended to President Joseph Biden that he restore millions of acres to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah, according to reports Monday in the Washington Post and the New York Times.
Former President Donald Trump in 2017 slashed Bears Ears by nearly 85 percent—from 1.35 million acres to 201,397 acres—and opened the two national monuments to mining, drilling, and development. He reduced the nearly 1.9 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante, established by President Bill Clinton in 1996, by 896,000 acres. Bears Ears was created by former President Barack Obama in 2016.
Haaland also recommended to Biden that he restore protections covering the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, a broad area of sea canyons and underwater mountains in the Atlantic Ocean off the New England coast, according to the Post. Former President Barack Obama designated the ocean monument in 2016, and Trump opened it to commercial fishing in 2020.
The Times said a spokeswoman for Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah confirmed that Haaland had made the recommendations. Cox said in early April that Utah “likely” would sue the federal government if Biden enlarges the two national monuments in Utah without approval from Congress.
The report has not been made public, and neither the White House nor the Interior Department would comment it, the Times said.
Haaland traveled to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase in April, where she met Republican leaders representing Utah, who said that if the land was restored it should be through congressional action, not presidential order. She also met with members of five tribal nations—the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and Pueblo of Zuni—who urged restoration of Bears Ears, their ancestral homeland that is the site of ancient Native cliff dwellings and sacred burial grounds.
Haaland sent her report to Biden, which the president requested in January, in early June. Biden is currently in Europe.
