Utah's national monuments are shrinking...again.
This week, President Trump signed an executive order drastically reducing the size of both the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments. It's the latest swing in a fight that's been going back and forth since President Clinton first designated Grand Staircase in 1996 using the Antiquities Act. President Obama created Bears Ears in 2016. Trump shrank both dramatically in 2017. Biden restored and even expanded them in 2021. Now Trump has shrunk them again.
Grand Staircase, once protected at roughly 1.87 million acres, is back down to around 181,000. Bears Ears has been split back into two smaller monuments totaling roughly 121,000 acres.
In this episode of Special Session, we walk through what actually changes on the ground, what's happening to tribal involvement in managing Bears Ears and where the legal battle stands.
From there, we get into what's expected Thursday night when President Trump addresses the nation. Reports suggest he'll relitigate the 2020 election and possibly try to declare Georgia's two Democratic senators illegitimate, which carries zero constitutional weight.
We also cover the Legislature's abrupt about-face on their plan to ask voters for the power to repeal citizen ballot initiatives, coming right after Senate President Stuart Adams lost his primary; how Lindsey Graham's sudden death complicates Sen. Mike Lee's efforts to pass the SAVE Act; the ongoing Attorney General investigation into Rep. Trevor Lee; Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson's public pushback against the DOJ's demands for Utah's unredacted voter rolls; and new reporting on which members of Congress had their text messages subpoenaed during the January 6 investigation.
Listen and subscribe to the episode at this link or wherever you get your podcasts.
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