On Monday, President Trump announced his plan to shrink Bears Ears National Monument by 85 percent, while also cutting Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by half, a move that could open up Utah to more oil and gas drilling. In the waning hours of Barack Obama’s tenure as President, he signed an order using the Antiquities Act to protect millions of acres in Bears Ears. President Trump is now trying to undo that move, which will be the first time a president has reduced such a large portion of national monument territory since the 1960s. Presidents tend to add land into protection to burnish their legacy – George W. Bush created a massive reserve in the Pacific Ocean around Hawaii in his second term, a Marine National Monument that was expanded under the Obama administration. There are not a ton of examples in which Presidents shrink national monuments, and even […]