Zinke backs shrinking more national monuments

Ryan Zinke, the gift that keeps on giving.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Tuesday called on President Trump to shrink a total of four national monuments and change the way six other land and marine sites are managed, a sweeping overhaul of how protected areas are maintained in the United States.

Zinke’s final report comes a day after Trump signed proclamations in Utah that downsized two massive national monuments there — Bears Ears by 85 percent and Grand Staircase-Escalante by nearly 46 percent. The president had directed Zinke in April to review 27 national monuments established since 1996 under the Antiquities Act, which gives the president broad authority to safeguard federal lands and waters under threat.

In addition to the Utah sites, Zinke supports cutting Nevada’s Gold Butte and Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou, though the exact reductions are still being determined. He also would revise the proclamations for those and the others to clarify that certain activities are allowed.

The additional monuments affected include Northeast Canyons and Seamounts in the Atlantic Ocean; both Rose Atoll and the Pacific Remote Islands in the Pacific Ocean; New Mexico’s Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks and Rio Grande Del Norte, and Maine’s Katahdin Woods and Waters.

LINK (via: The Washington Post)

Zinke said the more than 2.5 million public comments on his review “overwhelmingly” favored the monuments remain unchanged. But Zinke pushed back on that, saying “I don’t yield to public pressure.”

One thought on “Zinke backs shrinking more national monuments

  1. Where are the fictional Frank Griffin Gang, Roy Goode, crackshot Alice and the visually challenged Marshal now with corrective glasses when you really need them? Godless…..

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