Since President Biden announced the expansion of the Bears Ears National Monument and the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in Utah, we’ve been hopeful that the State of Utah would litigate these monument expansions. Earlier this year Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts signaled that he has concerns about the increasing size of monument designations. The state of Utah has suffered extensive abuse of the Antiquities Act as presidents have set aside millions of acres of multiple use public land to be managed as restrictive National Monuments.
This weekend Utah’s Attorney General Sean Reyes announced that the state has hired a national law firm to litigate the monument expansions – hopefully to the level of the Supreme Court. We have been encouraging our members to send a message of encouragement to Utah Governor Spencer Cox and Utah AG Sean Reyes. Now that they are moving forward with this, it is important that they continue to hear from us. The anti-access groups who have pushed for these monuments are encouraging their members to oppose the move to litigate, and we need to make sure these elected leaders are hearing from all sides. Please take a minute to send a “thank you” message to leaders in Utah:
