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Trump Declares War on Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante

Apr 26th, 2017 Written by Scott Groene

They’re coming for your national monuments.

This morning, President Trump signed an executive order directing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to “review” Bears Ears National Monument within 45 days, and to make a recommendation on all other monuments going back to the designation of Grand Staircase-Escalante in 1996.

That this review is a sham is beyond doubt. During the signing ceremony, Trump repeatedly mentioned Bears Ears, saying it “never should have been done.” And the White House advisory on the executive order specifically calls out Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante as “two examples of modern abuses of the Antiquities Act.”

In short, Utah’s redrock wilderness is ground zero in Trump’s war on the American West.

Can you send a tweet right now to Secretary Ryan Zinke and tell him to leave Grand Staircase and Bears Ears alone?

Heres a sample tweet:

.@SecretaryZinke please #StandwithBearsEars and leave #grandstaircase intact. #Keepitpublic #monumentsforall

Or call the Secretary’s office directly at 202-208-7351 or be patched through on your cell phone by clicking here.

Sunset Arch in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Copyright James W. Kay.

Every call and tweet makes a difference. We need to show Sec. Zinke that the American public is opposed to his attempts to undo decades of conservation victories.

It’s clear that at Bears Ears the president wants Secretary Zinke to manufacture the political cover for his administration to break the government’s promise to Native American Tribes to protect and preserve their ancestral homeland.

And it’s equally clear that at Grand Staircase the president is seeking to reward his Big Coal backers at the expense of one of the nation’s wildest and most dramatic redrock landscapes.

SUWA is going to do everything in our power to stop President Trump from giving away our national monuments to developers and drillers. Now is the time for all of us to speak up in defense of the redrock.

Thank you for taking action.