Biden restores protections for 3 national monuments

President Joe Biden restored two sprawling national monuments in Utah, reversing a decision by President Donald Trump that opened for mining and development some red-rock lands sacred to Native Americans and home to ancient cliff dwellings and petroglyphs.

The Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments encompass more than 3.2 million acres - an area nearly the size of Connecticut - and were created by Democratic administrations under a century-old law that allows presidents to protect sites considered historic, geographically or culturally important.

In a separate action, Biden restored protections at a marine conservation area off the New England coast that has been used for commercial fishing under an order by Trump.

The monuments cover vast expanses of southern Utah where red rocks reveal petroglyphs and cliff dwellings and distinctive buttes bulge from a grassy valley. Trump invoked the century-old Antiquities Act to cut 2 million acres (800,000 hectares) from the two monuments, calling restrictions on mining and other energy production a “massive land grab” that “should never have happened.”

His actions slashed Bears Ears, on lands considered sacred to Native American tribes, by 85%, to just over 200,000 acres (80,900 hectares). Grand Staircase-Escalante was cut by nearly half, leaving it at about 1 million acres (405,000 hectares).

The White House said in a statement that Biden was “fulfilling a key promise” to restore the monuments to their full size and “upholding the longstanding principle that America’s national parks, monuments and other protected areas are to be protected for all time and for all people.”

Biden's plan also restores protections in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument in the Atlantic Ocean, southeast of Cape Cod. Trump had made a rule change to allow commercial fishing in a nearly 5,000-square-mile area, an action that was heralded by fishing groups but derided by environmentalists who pushed Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to restore protections against fishing..

Deb Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet secretary, traveled to Utah in April to visit the monuments, becoming the latest federal official to step into what has been a yearslong public lands battle. She submitted her recommendations on the monuments in June.

“The historical connection between Indigenous peoples and Bears Ears is undeniable; our Native American ancestors sustained themselves on the landscape since time immemorial, and evidence of their rich lives is everywhere one looks,” said Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico.

President Barack Obama proclaimed Bears Ears a national monument in 2016, 20 years after President Bill Clinton moved to protect Grand Staircase-Escalante. Bears Ears was the first site to receive the designation at the specific request of tribes.

The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, which pushed for its restoration, has said the monument's twin buttes are considered a place of worship for many tribes. The group incudes the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni and Ute Indian Tribe.

The Trump administration’s reductions to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante paved the way for potential coal mining and oil and gas drilling on lands that were previously off-limits. However, activity was limited because of market forces.

Conservative state leaders considered the size of both monuments U.S. government overreach and applauded the reductions.

Environmental, tribal, paleontological and outdoor recreation organizations sued to restore their original boundaries,