On Wednesday, President Donald Trump ordered\u00a0the Interior Department to review national monument designations dating back more than two decades.<\/p>\n
The national monuments called into question by Trump account for\u00a0millions of acres of land, USA Today\u00a0<\/em>reported. Trump\u2019s order argues that former presidents\u00a0\u201cabused\u201d the system by designating the land as a monument, thus protecting it from oil drilling and future development.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cToday, we are giving power back to the states and people where it belongs,\u201d Trump said while\u00a0signing the executive order at the Interior Department headquarters. \u201cThis massive federal land grab; it\u2019s gotten worse and worse.\u201d<\/p>\n The executive order was signed at the request of Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, according to Fox News, who was angered over President Obama\u2019s national monument declaration at Bears Ears.\u00a0\u201cWhen President Obama designated the Bears Ears monument in December,\u00a0he did so ignoring the voices of Utah leaders who were united in opposition, and even more importantly, ignoring the voices of the local Utahns most affected by this massive land grab,\u201d Hatch said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The signing of the order now calls into question the power of the\u00a01906 Antiquities Act, which gave presidents authority to protect land. Of the act, Trump said it gave \u201cunlimited power to lock up millions of acres of land and water.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Environmentalists are already gearing up for battle.\u00a0“This review is a first step towards monument rollbacks, which we will fight all the way,” Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, told USA Today<\/em>. “These public lands belong to all of us.” While\u00a0the Sierra Club said in a statement,\u00a0\u201cAmerica\u2019s parks and public lands are not in need of corporate restructuring. We should not be asking which parts of our history and heritage we can eliminate, but instead how we can make our outdoors reflect the full American story.\u201d<\/p>\n To be clear, the executive order does not strip the areas of their protected status just yet.\u00a0“Here\u2019s what the executive order does not do:\u00a0The executive order does not strip any monument of a designation. The executive order does not loosen any environmental or conservation regulation on any land or marine areas,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in a statement. “It is a review of the last 20 years.” His report is expected in the next 120 days.<\/p>\n To help understand what\u2019s at stake, check out a few of the truly stunning national monuments Trump would like to open for oil, gas, and coal mining instead of protect for future generations of Americans below:\u00a0<\/p>\n On Wednesday, President Donald Trump ordered\u00a0the Interior Department to review national monument designations dating back more than two decades. The national monuments called into question by Trump account for\u00a0millions of acres of land, USA Today\u00a0reported. Trump\u2019s order argues that former presidents\u00a0\u201cabused\u201d the system by designating the land as a monument, thus protecting it from oil…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Bear Ears, Utah<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
\nMojave Trails, California\u00a0<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
\nPapahanaumokuakea, Hawaii<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
\nBerryessa Snow Mountain, California\u00a0<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
\nRio Grande del Norte, New Mexico\u00a0<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
\nSan Gabriel Mountains, California\u00a0<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
\nPacific Remote Islands<\/h2><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"