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The Trump Despoliation

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Trump and his cronies, which to be fair are absolutely no different than bog standard Republicanism on these issues, are so excited to ruin the nation’s beautiful landscapes.

The Bureau of Land Management acknowledged Friday it plans to open a large portion of land in Utah — which the federal government until recently considered a national monument — to future oil, gas and mining projects.

At the urging of local and state officials as well as industry groups, President Donald Trump in 2017 shrank the size of Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to 1 million acres from the 1.9 million acres it was when President Bill Clinton established it.

Planning documents released by the agency Friday said that of the acreage cut from the original monument, roughly 211,000 acres would be exempt from fossil fuel leasing, while the remaining land would be available for future leases. None of the land would be exempt from mining.

But the Interior Department, which recommended Trump’s action, said special interests hadn’t factored into its decision-making.

In a statement released after BLM’s plans were made public, House Natural Resources Chairman Raúl M. Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat, said the department had misspent federal funds in preparing the documents because the president’s action is the subject of ongoing litigation. He called the move a “shameless giveaway campaign.”

“The Trump administration is wasting taxpayer dollars that should go to protecting our public lands and using them to open important places to destructive fossil fuel extraction,” Grijalva said.

Whenever a president gets elected, there’s a conversation about what they should do for their first act. In this case, when President Warren takes over in 2021, her very first act should be reestablishing the original boundaries of the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments. Utah Republicans will be outraged. But I guess we can live without Democrats competing for Utah….

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