National News

 

Antiquities Fight Could Land Utah Monuments In Supreme Court. According to Politico, “Utah state officials are threatening new legal challenges over President Biden’s restoration of more than 2 million acres of public lands to a pair of national monuments in the Beehive State, potentially setting up an eventual Supreme Court review of a key conservation law. Biden last week reinstated the former boundaries of both the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, reversing cuts made by former President Trump (E&E News PM, Oct. 8). The action drew sharp criticism from Utah’s congressional delegation and state lawmakers, including Gov. Spencer Cox (R), who have long criticized the monuments as the epitome of federal government overreach. They had successfully lobbied then-President Trump to scale back the sites. Utah Solicitor General Melissa Holyoak told the Salt Lake City Fox News affiliate on Friday that the state views Biden’s restoration of the Bears Ears monument in particular as a ‘gross abuse’ of executive authority. ‘We think this is definitely an abuse of power of the Antiquities Act,’ Holyoak said, referring to the 1906 law that allows presidents to set aside existing public lands as monuments to protect areas of cultural, scientific or historic interest.” [Politico, 10/12/21 (=)]

 

 

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