President Donald Trump recently signed executive orders shrinking the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. These orders reduced the monuments by about 90% or nearly three million acres. The president also disbanded the Bears Ears Commission, which facilitated consultation with five tribes in the area.
Environmental groups call these actions illegal and worry that affected public lands will now be open to mining and mineral leasing. Supporters of the reductions say the monuments needed to be right-sized and that multiple uses of the federal land can now be restored.
We talk with Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz and Steve Bloch, legal director with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
