Sophia Eppolito
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox takes a selfie with Rep. Blake Moore, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson and Sen. Mitt Romney during a tour by ancient dwellings along the Butler Wash trail at the Bears Ears National Monument Thursday, April 8, 2021, near Blanding, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool) April 08, 2021 - 4:51 PM
SALT LAKE CITY - For decades, a public lands tug-of-war has played out over a vast expanse of southern Utah where red rocks reveal petroglyphs and cliff dwellings and distinctive twin buttes bulge from a grassy valley.
A string of U.S. officials has heard from those who advocate for broadening national monuments to protect the area s many archaeological and cultural sites, considered sacred to surrounding tribes, and those who fiercely oppose what they see as federal overreach.
Deseret News
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The Bears Ears of the Bears Ears National Monument are pictured from the air on Monday, May 8, 2017. Navajo Nation leaders called for full restoration and expansion of the Bears Ears National Monument to 1.9 million acres in a meeting with U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland on Wednesday in Bluff, Utah.
Scott G Winterton, Deseret News
Navajo Nation leaders called for full restoration and expansion of the Bears Ears National Monument to 1.9 million acres in a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland on Wednesday in Bluff, San Juan County.
The move would reverse former President Donald Trump’s sweeping reduction of the national monument designated under former President Barack Obama.
April 7, 2021 1:50 p.m.
J.D. Mesnard, a Republican state senator in Arizona, couldn’t hide his disappointment that a high-powered group of Phoenix business leaders had signed onto a letter calling a bill of his one that significantly beefs up identification requirements for voting by mail an attempt at “voter suppression cloaked as reform.”
“That exact phrasing that was used is beyond disappointing,” a wounded Mesnard told TPM over the phone Tuesday.
“I know those guys, at least some of them, that signed the letter,” the senator said. “I’ve got a reasonably good relationship with them. Don’t always agree on every issue. But that specific phraseology how that’s characterized, my intent being questioned is beyond offensive.”
With huge bipartisan and public support, and an ability to make personal the importance of conservation (over 300 million people visited the parks in 2019), the National Park Service could see itself as a figurehead for larger efforts like 30 by 30, though the path to get there may be rocky