President Barack Obama greatly expanded protection of national monuments during his time in office, including Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, and also Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, off the coast of Rhode Island.
The first and the third national monuments were created by Obama in 2016, and the second created by Bill Clinton in 1996 and continued protected under Obama.
All three were dramatically reduced in size by Donald Trump in 2017, to promote development, mining, ranching, drilling, and fishing to take place on the lands, with the first two monuments also having sacred native American significance, which had been ignored by Trump.
But now, President Joe Biden has restored the entire expansion under Obama and Clinton, reversing Trump’s actions, a fantastic development!
Environmentalists and native American tribes are rejoicing, along with many conservation groups, including the Conservation Lands Foundation, for which my older son works as its Washington DC lobbyist!