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| Trump shrinks Bear's Ears monument in Utah in historic decision | Trump shrinks Bear's Ears monument in Utah in historic decision |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| President Donald Trump announced he is modifying two national monuments designated by his predecessors, shrinking the areas of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. Bears Ears was established by the Obama administration last year. | |
| Trump signed the presidential proclamations concerning the two sites in Salt Lake City on Monday, flanked by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and several Utah lawmakers. | Trump signed the presidential proclamations concerning the two sites in Salt Lake City on Monday, flanked by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and several Utah lawmakers. |
| “No one values the splendor of Utah more than you do,” he told the cheering audience at the state capitol, presenting the move as reversing the Obama administration’s federal overreach and restoring the public lands to the public. | “No one values the splendor of Utah more than you do,” he told the cheering audience at the state capitol, presenting the move as reversing the Obama administration’s federal overreach and restoring the public lands to the public. |
| Trump accused the Obama administration of using a 1906 law to “lock up hundreds of millions of acres of land and water under strict government control.” | |
| “These abuses of the Antiquities Act give enormous power to far away bureaucrats at the expense of the people who actually live here, work here, and make this place their home,” the president said. | |
| Trump's order will massively reduce the Bears Ears National Monument to 220,000 acres, just 15 percent of its original size. The Grand Staircase-Escalante, established by the Clinton administration in 1996, will shrink by about 50 percent. | |
| President Barack Obama designated the approximately 1.3 million acre Bears Ears as a national monument in December 2016, saying the order would "protect some of the country's most significant natural, cultural and archaeological resources, including important ancestral grounds for numerous tribes." | |
| According to Obama, the area is home to three Ute tribes, as well as the the Navajo, Hopi and Zuni. |