Utah monuments cut by Trump have size, protections restored

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Friday restored two sprawling national monuments in Utah, reversing a decision by former President Donald Trump that opened for mining and other development hundreds of thousands of acres of rugged lands sacred to Native Americans and home to ancient cliff dwellings and petroglyphs.

The Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments in southern Utah encompass an area nearly the size of Connecticut. They were created by Democratic administrations under a century-old law that allows presidents to protect sites considered historically, geographically or culturally important.

“This may be the easiest thing I’ve ever done so far as president — I mean it,’’ a smiling Biden said at a White House ceremony.

Restoring the monuments’ boundaries and protections restores their integrity, upholds efforts to honor the federal trust responsibility to tribal nations, and conserves the lands and waters for future generations, Biden said.

Bears Ears in particular was an important site to protect, Biden said, noting that the 1.3 million-acre site is the first national monument to be established at the request of federally recognized tribes. It is “a place of reverence and a sacred homeland to hundreds of generations of native peoples,’’ he said.

Biden called Grand Staircase-Escalante “a place of unique and extraordinary geology” and noted that the 1.9 million-acre site had been protected by presidential order for 21 years before Trump’s 2017 order slashed the monument nearly in half. Trump cut Bears Ears by 85 percent, to just over 200,000 acres.

Biden also restored protections at a marine conservation area off the New England coast that had been used for commercial fishing under an order by Trump.