NM U.S. Sens. Luján and Heinrich lead Senate Democrats denouncing Utah national monument reductions

New Mexico’s two Democratic United States senators, along with U.S. Sen Dick Durban (D-Ill.) led a group of 34 senators in a letter Tuesday that expresses “strong opposition” to President Donald Trump’s recent decision to greatly reduce the footprints of two national monuments in Utah.

Trump on July 13 signed a pair of executive orders to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah by about 3 million acres or 90% of their original size. The decision drew outrage across the West from environmental advocates and Indigenous governments, including the Navajo Nation and Zuni Tribe, who said they were not consulted in the decision.

The leader of a New Mexico environmentalist group also said the move put him on “high alert” about similar national monuments in the state, including Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, Río Grande del Norte and Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks.

In their letter to Trump, U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), along with 32 other Democratic senators, called the Utah monuments “national treasures” that also presented models of how tribes and the federal government can partner to protect nationally and culturally important sites. 

When Trump reduced the Bears Ears National Monument, he also disbanded the Bears Ears Commission, the senators noted, which they described as “a landmark model of collaborative management between sovereign Tribal Nations and the federal government.”

Beyond the impact on Indigenous people, the letter says shrinking the monuments leaves them vulnerable to “destruction and loss” and also economically harms communities adjacent to the monuments. 

“By attempting, yet again, to eliminate vast portions of these monuments, your Administration invites needless uncertainty to the stability that local communities, Tribes, land managers, scientists, recreation users, and businesses need. Not just in Utah, but for all local communities that rely on the stability of our national monuments,” the senators wrote.