A group of 10 environmental and conservation groups began filing lawsuits against President Trump on Monday night for reversing the previous creation of two national monuments in Utah by former Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
The first lawsuit was filed against Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke for Clinton’s 1996 creation, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah.
Kieran Suckling, the director of the Center for Biological Diversity, tweeted the suit was the first of two to be filed in the D.C. District Court for Trump’s proclamation “gutting” Clinton’s expansion of the monument by 900,000 acres.
BREAKING: @CenterForBioDiv and allies minutes ago filed a lawsuit against Trump and Zinke for gutting Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by 900,000 acres. It’s our 38th suit against Trump so far. #BearsEarsNationalMonument suit coming soon. @IgniteChangeTm pic.twitter.com/lSfAEuC8p4
— Kierán Suckling (@KieranSuckling) December 5, 2017
The lawsuit argues Trump has “flouted” 111 years of conservation history and has no authority under the Constitution or the Antiquities Act to enact such a reversal.
Suckling said to expect a second lawsuit “soon” over Trump’s decision to shrink the Bear Ears National Monument, proclaimed by President Obama.
Others on the lawsuit included the Wilderness Society, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife among others.
Suckling noted in his tweet this is the 38th lawsuit his group has filed against the Trump administration. His group was one of the first to sue Trump over his proposed border wall between the U.S. and Mexico because of its disruption of protected wildlife habitat.
