If environmentalists characterized the Trump administration’s management of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in song, it would be American composer Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes.”
To ensure that song doesn’t remain the same, environmentalists are sounding off against an appropriations bill that would cut funding to the Environmental Protection Agency and require the Bureau of Land Management to oversee Grand Staircase by Trump administration rules, despite landmark changes to the monument imposed by President Joe Biden.
Opposed by 50 environmental groups, including the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the FY2024 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Bill the House Appropriations Committee passed in July and the full House of Representatives is expected to vote on in September, would tie the BLM’s hands in two fundamental ways.
First, it would prevent the BLM from managing the national monument in accordance with Proclamation 10286, in which President Joe Biden restored the Grand Staircase to its original 1996 boundaries. That action came in October 2021 and reversed former President Donald Trump’s 2017 decision to slash the size of the monument in half, from 1.9 million to roughly 900,000 acres. The bill would require the BLM to manage the monument’s roughly 1.9 million acres in accordance with the plan finalized after Trump reduced the monument.
Second, the appropriations bill would prevent the BLM from using any of its funds to implement its proposed “Public Lands Rule,” which would put conservation on equal footing with extraction, livestock grazing and other uses of the land.
“The current House Appropriations bill would be deeply harmful to Utah’s public lands,” Travis Hammill, the Washington, D.C., director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, stated in a news release. “The bill would undermine management within the reestablished Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument boundaries by restricting funding and effectively pretending that the Trump monument reduction is still in place.”
Hammill added the bill would also “eviscerate the BLM’s proposed Public Lands Rule, which seeks to level the playing field between conservation and extraction to ensure that our shared lands and waters will be managed for wildlife, natural and cultural resources, and the enjoyment of current and future generations. Legislators should focus on funding our federal land management agencies, not enacting wildly unpopular policy mandates via purse strings.”
Utah Rep. Chris Stewart, whose district encompasses Grand Staircase, did not respond to requests for comment on the bill. Utah Rep. John Curtis’ office also declined to weigh in, noting the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is situated in Stewart’s district.
Curtis, however, has shown no such reticence in the past, especially in his opposition to the Public Lands Rule that would allow conservation to be considered a use of the land, creating “conservation leases” that would go alongside established uses of BLM land like grazing, mining and timber harvesting.
In July, Curtis introduced a bill that would force the BLM to withdraw the rule, which he and other Republicans argue could potentially destroy the grazing, mining and recreation that happens on lands the federal agency manages across the West.
In a news release last May, Curtis said the Public Lands Rule “would undermine the livelihoods of Utah’s farmers, ranchers, recreation businesses, and more.” In the same news release, Curtis said, “this rule attempts to lock up those precious lands that should be open and accessible to the public.”
Kya Marienfeld, wild lands attorney for SUWA, called the Utah congressional delegation’s lack of support for the state’s public lands disappointing but adds that opposition is offset by more enlightened members of Congress who actively support the Grand Staircase and other public lands.
Conversely, Garfield County Commissioner Leland Pollock leaves no doubt where he stands, noting he has worked with Congressman Stewart’s office to cut funding to the BLM and other agencies and curtail their ability to implement Biden’s environmental agenda.
In particular, Pollack takes aim at the BLM’s draft Resource Management Plan. When Biden restored the Grand Staircase to its original boundaries set by President Bill Clinton in September 1996, he mandated the BLM to draft a new Resource Management Plan that would restore many of the protections put in place prior to the monument’s reduction.
Pollack said the appropriations bill is aimed at stopping the implementation of the new management plan, which he said will wipe out grazing, bankrupt ranchers and farmers, close some roads and stop ATV use, and eliminate target shooting.
“I grew up on the Grand Staircase,” Pollock said. “It’s not like a national park like Bryce Canyon. There are all kinds of rangeland and open country where nobody ever goes. I learned how to plink with a .22 [rifle] and shoot with my dad when I was in kindergarten.
“We would go out and hunt rabbits and target shoot,” he continued. “That’s been a way of life for many, many generations. [The BLM] wants to eliminate target shooting on 50% of that monument, and that is also going to infuriate the public.”
The BLM introduced its draft Resource Management Plan on Aug. 11 and is accepting public comment through Nov. 9, 2023. The plan consists of four alternatives that would govern management of the monument going forward.
Alternative A, dubbed as the “no action alternative,” would essentially leave the Trump-era plan in place except where it specifically contradicts the protections put in place by Clinton and Biden. Alternative B offers a few more protections. Alternative D is the most restrictive, essentially calling for closing more roads, limiting more grazing and recreational uses and eliminating target shooting anywhere within the Grand Staircase boundaries, among other things.
Alternative C is the preferred alternative, according to Greg Sheehan, director of the Utah BLM.
It would establish four management areas in the monument. The front country area would allow for visitor centers, interpretive sites, highway overlooks and developed trails, trailheads and campgrounds. The focus in the passage area would offer visitors more limited and less developed day-use and overnight opportunities.
In the outback area, facilities would be rare and provided only when it was necessary to protect monument resources or public safety. Infrastructure and motorized access in the most restrictive primitive area would be almost nonexistent.
In addition, target shooting under Alternative C would be banned from the front country and primitive areas and prohibited in the passage and outback areas within a quarter-mile of residences, campgrounds and developed recreation facilities. Off-highway vehicle travel would be limited to designated routes and banned from the primitive area.
Marienfeld said that’s a stark contrast from the anything-goes Trump plan, which established the Little Desert Off-Highway Vehicle Area that allowed for “open” off-road vehicle use on 116 acres in the monument. “You can drive wherever the heck you want in a conservation monument,” she said, “and that’s wild.”
The BLM will take public input at Zoom meetings scheduled for Sept. 6 and Oct. 25, the details for which will be announced later. The public can also attend in-person meetings at the following dates and locations:
Sept. 20, 2023, from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m., Escalante Interagency Visitor Center, 755 W. Main St., Escalante.
Oct. 4, 2023, from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m., Kanab Center, Ballroom A, 20 N. 100 East, Kanab.
Oct. 18, 2023, from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m., Panguitch Elementary School, 110 S. 100 West, Panguitch.
Correction, Aug. 24, 1:15 p.m. • This article was updated to clarify that Marienfeld was speaking about the Little Desert Off-Highway Vehicle Area.
