Trumping Clinton and Obama: How did we get here?

SALT LAKE CITY = President Donald Trump is scheduled to arrive in Utah on Monday to undo two of the most controversial public lands decisions in state history.
Trump intends to reduce Bears Ears National Monument from 1.35 million acres to 201,397 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument from nearly 1.9 milllion acres to 997,490 acres, according to documents leaked last week.

President Barack Obama created Bears Ears a year ago this month under the Antiquities Act, a 1906 law granting the president authority to proclaim national monuments on federal lands to protect significant natural, cultural or scientific features.
Former President Bill Clinton used the same law in 1996 to stun Utahns with the Grand Staircase-Escalante designation.
What his Democratic predecessors did with the stroke of a pen, Trump looks to undo the same way.

Carolyn Kaster

President Donald Trump hands a pen to Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, after signing an Antiquities Executive Order during a ceremony at the Interior Department in Washington, Wednesday, April, 26, 2017. The president is asking for a review of the designation of tens of millions of acres of land as "national monuments." (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

"Finally, we have a president brave enough to tackle an issue important to the people of Utah," said former Utah GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz, whose district included Bears Ears.
Years of bickering over national monument designations in Utah has brought Trump to the point of what the Center for Western Priorities says would be the single largest elimination of protections for public lands and wildlife in U.S. history.
How Utah got here goes back decades.

A win or a slap?
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has been a driving force behind getting Trump to reduce the size of the monuments and to bring him to Utah to make the announcement. The seven-term senator, along with Utah's all-Republican congressional delegation, dogged Trump since he took office to do something about Bears Ears.
Trump credited Hatch for his decision to make a new monument proclamation during a phone call last month saying, "I’m approving the Bears Ears recommendation for you, Orrin."

Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke poses for photos with people who want the Bears Ears National Monument rescinded during a rally in Blanding on Monday, May 8, 2017.

Utah Republicans and many southern Utah leaders and residents hail Trump's move as the right thing to do for states' rights, and in the case of Grand Staircase-Escalante, long overdue.
"I believe the outcome he is planning to announce strikes an excellent balance where everyone wins," Hatch said.
"The details of the president’s announcement are his and his alone to make, but I appreciate his willingness to listen to my advice and even more importantly, to give the people of Utah a voice in this process."

Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

Paul and Lieslie Williams, from New Harmony, join other supporters of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument chanting "talk to us" to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke at the airport in Kanab on Wednesday, May 10, 2017.

Democrats, Native American tribes and environmental groups call the move illegal and a slap in the face. Many organizations plan to sue the government over the decision, which could entangle the issue in court for months, if not years.
"This is providing a huge blow for tribes and locals who worked for years to make Bears Ears a reality. Reducing the monuments is culturally and economically harmful to local government, tribes and the communities that are supported by the monuments," said Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk, a Ute Mountain Ute and former Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition co-chairwoman.
Trump issued an executive order in April calling for a review of national monument designations over the past 21 years and vowing to end "abuses" of the Antiquities Act.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke toured the Bears Ears area in May on foot, helicopter and horseback before turning his attention to Grand Staircase-Escalante as part of Trump's order.

Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke rides a horse in the new Bears Ears National Monument near Blanding. Zinke is recommending that six of 27 national monuments under review by the Trump administration be reduced in size, along with management changes to several other sites. A leaked memo from Zinke to President Donald Trump recommends that two Utah monuments — Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante — be reduced, along with Nevada's Gold Butte and Oregon's Cascade-Siskiyou

A leaked copy of Zinke's memo to Trump in September detailed a list of recommendations for 10 monuments nationwide, including boundary revisions to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. Further leaked maps provided a glimpse at the scope of the reductions the president is contemplating.

Regardless of what Trump does, Chaffetz said the Bureau of Land Management will continue to oversee the areas.
"These lands had federal protection before and they will have them afterward. These were BLM lands and they'll go back to BLM lands," he said.
The question, which lies at the heart of the public lands debate, is how to manage the vast amounts of open space — about two-thirds of which is federal land — in Utah.
'Gotcha' politics
Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, traces the prolonged battle over national monuments back to the bill President Teddy Roosevelt signed into law nearly 112 years ago.
"Most presidents have used the Antiquities Act very sparingly, and though there were complaints about it, it didn’t have a whole lot of traction," he said.