October 12, 2021 — As tribal leaders and environmentalists celebrate President Biden’s scheduled restoration today of more than 2 million acres of public lands to a pair of Utah monuments, activists stress that the pomp and circumstance is a precursor to extensive work that remains to be done to shore up those sites.
Biden is scheduled this afternoon to sign new proclamations, which have yet to be published, restoring millions of acres to both Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments.
He will also reinstate commercial fishing restrictions to Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in the Atlantic Ocean (Greenwire, Oct. 7).
The action will reverse cuts President Trump made in 2017 at the behest of GOP lawmakers who had long criticized the monuments as a form of federal overreach by the Democratic presidents who established them.
It will also restore protections to the marine monument that Trump removed in 2020, opening the 5,000-square-mile site about 130 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Mass., to commercial interests.
Saving Seafood Executive Director Bob Vanasse criticized the Biden administration’s decision for allowing recreational fishing to continue in the area, even as members of his industry advocacy group are locked out.
“While the Biden-Harris administration has claimed decisions will be based on science, and not on who has the stronger lobby, this decision shows otherwise,” Vanasse said.
“Prohibiting hardworking commercial fishermen from sustainably harvesting while allowing owners of luxury yachts to spear fish for the same species in the same location is hypocritical and calls into question this administration‘s commitment to working families over wealthy donors,” he added.