BLM releases destructive plans for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Nearly two years after the Trump administration decided to whittle down the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to a fraction of its original size, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management released its plans for managing the land. The plans, which replace an existing one that's been in place for 20 years, have two big problems. First, they leave out a lot of land that the president does not have the authority to exclude. And second, the plans don't do nearly enough to protect the land that's left in. Like Bears Ears, the other Utah monument under attack by the Trump administration, Grand Staircase-Escalante is one of the country’s most spectacular cliff and canyon systems, home to some of the world’s most well-preserved cultural and paleontological artifacts. Both deserve to be protected—not pillaged.