We recently caught up with Charles Wilkinson, Moses Lasky Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School and asked him to reflect on the history of public lands battles in southeast Utah, the significance of the Bears Ears National Monument established by former President Barack Obama in 2016, and his predictions regarding the lawsuits challenging President Trump’s reduction of the Obama monument in late 2017.
Read MoreBears Ears Officially Opens to Oil and Gas and Mining - Outside, 2/2/18
Outside has done consistently solid reporting on all things Bears Ears and public lands. Don't let the fatalistic URL fool you: this piece takes a clear-eyed look at the opening of lands formerly within Bears Ears National Monument to resource extraction, and explains why we're unlikely to see an "1800s-style land rush" bonanza anytime soon.
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When we spoke with residents of Bluff, Utah last month about their decision to incorporate as a town, the original Bears Ears National Monument established in December 2016 by Barack Obama was still intact. Bluff, a tiny community of 250 or so people in Utah’s southeastern corner that lay just outside the monument, was still widely expected to become the de facto gateway to Bears Ears. But that was before the Trump trip.
Read MoreWell, folks, it really happened. Yesterday, during a whirlwind trip to Utah, President Trump signed an Executive Order shrinking Bears Ears National Monument from 1.35 million acres to 202,000 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument from 1.9 million acres to just over 1 million acres. So what happens now? Let us break it down for you.
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