Thousands protest Trump's Utah monument reduction plan

[Judi Lynn]

Last edited Sun Dec 3, 2017, 02:10 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: Associated Press

Thousands protest Trump's Utah monument reduction plan
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SALT LAKE CITY — Dec 2, 2017, 5:37 PM ET

Roughly 5,000 people showed up to the rally, according to the Utah Highway Patrol. The demonstration remained relatively peaceful.

Trump is scheduled to visit the state on Monday, when he will announce a plan to reduce the size of Bears Ears and Staircase-Escalante National Monuments by nearly two-thirds. Those monuments were designated by former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, respectively.

Trump's move would be the first such act by a president in half a century. Environmentalists and tribal leaders have decried the decision as illegal and an affront to Native Americans.

Leaked documents obtained by The Associated Press show that Trump plans to shrink Bears Ears National Monument by nearly 85 percent and reduce Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by almost half.


Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/thousands-protest-trumps-utah-monument-reduction-plan-51536685

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The original article posted here covered the same event, but was not as reliable as this AP article, posted by iluvtennis in Post #1.

Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks to iluvtennis for providing a better source.

[iluvtennis]

1. An ABC link

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/thousands-protest-trumps-utah-monument-reduction-plan-51536685



Roughly 5,000 people showed up to the rally, according to the Utah Highway Patrol. The demonstration remained relatively peaceful.

Trump is scheduled to visit the state on Monday, when he will announce a plan to reduce the size of Bears Ears and Staircase-Escalante National Monuments by nearly two-thirds. Those monuments were designated by former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, respectively.

Trump's move would be the first such act by a president in half a century. Environmentalists and tribal leaders have decried the decision as illegal and an affront to Native Americans.

Leaked documents obtained by The Associated Press show that Trump plans to shrink Bears Ears National Monument by nearly 85 percent and reduce Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by almost half.

The plan would cut the total amount of land in the state's red rock country protected under monument status from more than 3.2 million acres (5,000 square miles) to about 1.2 million acres (1,875 square miles).

Trump has told Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch and other Utah officials that he will follow the recommendation of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to shrink both monuments.

...continued at link

[Judi Lynn]

2. Thank you for this. Helps a lot. n/t

[johnnylol]

5. monument

The conflict over the Antiquities Act — the 1906 law governing the creation of national monuments — is another example where short-term politics are overtaking law and reason. Opponents of the president have seized on a politically convenient legal argument to deny President Trump the power to revoke or modify existing monuments. But there is very little to it.

Nothing in the Antiquities Act forbids the president from revoking or shrinking a national monument. And the theory is belied by history: Seven presidents have shrunk national monuments, including President William Howard Taft, who reduced the Navajo National Monument by nearly 90 percent.

[mobeau69]

8. Wilson had a "reason"; what is Dotards? By the way, are you really a Democrat?

“Those were primarily very small adjustments. Sometimes lands were omitted, sometimes lands were added,” McIntosh said. “And no president has made even minor boundary adjustments since Kennedy in 1964.”

Yet there is a history of presidents tinkering around the edges of national monuments—and sometimes cutting into them wholesale. Mount Olympus National Monument on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula provides a good example of this. The monument, encompassing temperate rainforest and Pacific seashore, was first created by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1909. In the next two decades, it received two small, largely uncontroversial cuts, as the original designation had accidentally included some private homesteads.

But it also received one large emendation. During World War I, President Wilson cited the country’s need for lumber and halved the monument in size. That action was never challenged in court—McIntosh pointed out that there were relatively few legally mobilized conservation groups at the time—but it was also short-lived. In 1938, Congress converted the monument into Olympic National Park, its modern-day name. It also empowered President Franklin Roosevelt to enlarge it to near-original size.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/obama-conserved-13-million-acres-in-utahcan-trump-un-conserve-them/530265/

[dicksmc3]

9. What??

Where in the hell were these folks at the time Oral Hatch was fucking people in the state of Utah with the Republicon TAX SCAM???

[burrowowl]

3. K&R!!!!!!

[mobeau69]

4. The raping of America. He makes me sick. This is disgusting to the max.

I am filled with hate for him.

[iluvtennis]

6. Ditto

[Botany]

7. only reason why Trump wants to get rid of much of the park .... Obama was for it

Last edited Mon Dec 4, 2017, 09:52 AM - Edit history (1)

[iluvtennis]

10. Agreed...that's the sole purpose of Trump - try to ERASE everything Obama put in place. GAH.