Presidents Clinton and Obama, under the Antiquities Act, designated lands as national monuments during their terms. The lands were important to several Native American tribes as heritage sites. Together, the monuments comprised about 3 million acres.
During his first term, Donald Trump tried to downsize both monuments, but President Biden restored both to their original size.
Now Trump has again downsized both monuments - from their original 3 million acres to about 300,000 acres. He did this in spite of the Antiquities Act giving presidents the power to create monuments, but not to downsize or eliminate them.
Most egregious was the lie he said as the reason for his action - to give it back to the people of the United States. That's ridiculous! As national monuments, the people of the United States (all of us) owned that land.
What he has actually done is to steal the land from the people so he can sell or lease it to special interests - corporate interests who want to mine it for minerals (uranium, copper, and possibly other minerals).
Trump has no interest in history or antiquities, or what is best for the people of this country. He's only interested in what can be bought and sold (and you can bet he will benefit personally from this).
We can only hope that the desecration of these monuments can be delayed until a Democratic president (elected in 2028) can restore them again.
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