CRS STATEMENT ON TRUMP’S DESTRUCTION OF UTAH NATIONAL MONUMENTS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 4, 2017
WASHINGTON — Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship (CRS) strongly condemns President Trump’s move, announced today in Utah, to dramatically slash Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante national monuments.
“Today President Trump took a wrecking ball to America’s natural and cultural heritage. In doing so, he showed total disregard for the law, for the ethic of stewardship, and for the many small businesses that depend on these national monuments,” said CRS president David Jenkins.
Jenkins continued, “The president has clearly overstepped his constitutional authority here. The big question is how much damage will he be able to wreak until the courts can restore the rule of law?”
Conservative legal scholars have raised alarms about the executive overreach exhibited by the president in this move to dice up and shrink America’s national monuments. As a legal paper hosted on the CRS website points out, Congress never “intended to crown the President with discretion to revoke or materially diminish or alter the management of an existing national monument.”
Jenkins added, “There is nothing remotely conservative about Trump’s move to dismantle these beloved national monuments. He, along with the Utah elected officials who pushed him to do this, is showing us just how deeply mired in the swamp of special interest politics they are. Nothing else matters to them.”
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