The Interior Department received more than 1.2 million public comments on its plan to review and possibly curtail the last 20 years of national monument designations, including the controversial Bears Ears monument in Utah designated by former President Barack Obama.
The comment period closed at midnight. “President Trump and I opened the formal public comment period – the first-ever for monuments designated under the Antiquities Act – in order to give local stakeholders a voice in the decision-making process,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Tuesday.
“Too often under previous administrations, decisions were made in the Washington, D.C., bubble, far removed from the local residents who actually work the land and have to live with the consequences of D.C.’s actions. This monument review is the exact opposite,” Zinke said.
Trump ordered the review in April, targeting 27 monuments, including those created by Obama in the waning days of his administration.
The expanded monuments came under GOP criticism for being done in haste and not giving tribal groups and others enough time to respond to the proposal. The expanded designations would preclude development and other activities over a broad swath of land.
The comments were submitted in response to Zinke’s proposed plan sent to the president in June recommending that the Bears Ears National Monument “be reduced in size to conform with the intent of the Antiquities Act.”
Zinke reassured critics that he doesn’t plan to sell off federal lands in reducing a monument’s size. “Even if a monument is modified, the land will remain under federal ownership,” he said.
