Restoring the National Monuments

This should have happened on January 21, but I am glad it is happening anyway. Biden is restoring the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah, as well as restoring the fishing protections for the national monument created by Obama to protect oceanic environments off the New England coast.

The reason this is so important is not only the protections themselves, though those are super critical. It’s to demonstrate clearly that if Republicans continue to attack the national monuments, Democrats will just restore them the next time they are in office. When you have petroleum and mineral rich lands such as southern Utah, that’s critical to keep corporations from making investments in the area when Republican attempt to eviscerate the protections on the land. That since their designation as monuments, looters have gone whole hog into illegally excavating archaeological sites is another core reason this is critical.