Sept. 2 (UPI) — Patagonia, an outdoor apparel company, announced Wednesday it sued the Trump administration for cuts dramatically shrinking the size of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah.
This is the second time Patagonia has sued the administration, the company said. In 2017, during Trump’s first term, it became the first company to sue a sitting president over public land after the president issued orders shrinking Bears Ears by 85% and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, also in Utah, by nearly half.
The case was not decided by the time of the 2020 election, and President Joe Biden restored both monuments to their original size in 2021.
On July 13, Trump issued orders to shrink them again — Bears Ears by about 91% this time and Grand Staircase-Escalante by about 90%. This amounts to nearly 3 million acres of land that will lose monument-related protections, the company said in a press release.
“Slashing Bears Ears and dismantling the Bears Ears commission is a betrayal of Tribal sovereignty and needlessly throws away years of effort to create the first Tribal co-management structure of a national monument in U.S. history,” Ryan Gellert, Patagonia CEO, said in a statement. “Patagonia worked with the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, scientists, conservation groups, outdoor industry advocates and more to establish the monument in 2016, and we are committed to defending it today and into the future.”
President Barack Obama designated the Bears Ears monument in late 2016, following a proposal by five Tribal entities: the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation and the Pueblo of Zuni. A coalition of these groups co-manages the monument with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
Patagonia says the U.S. Antiquities Act gives presidents the power to designate national monuments but not to undo them. However, the Trump administration, as well as others including Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, say the monuments violate that act, which they say limits the designation to the smallest parcel of land necessary for the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.
The Trump administration argued that term “objects of historic or scientific interest” in the Antiquities Act has been stretched to include landscapes and biodiversity — and should not.
When signing the new orders in July, Trump criticized the size of the monuments, claiming that the public cannot hunt, fish or “virtually not even walk” on the land. However, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management explicitly say people can hike, hunt and fish in both monuments, as well as take part in other forms of outdoor recreation.
The Center for Western Priorities said in July that Trump’s orders could open the land for sale or lease oil, gas, mining or logging companies within 60 days.