Grand Staircase Escalante

The Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-tribal Coalition provided extensive feedback for the resource management plan finalized one year ago. That plan is now in jeopardy since federal auditors ruled that Congress could use an obscure law to revoke it.

Federal auditors say that Congress could use an obscure law called the Congressional Review Act to throw out the Utah monument’s resource management plan, which sets which activities are or aren’t allowed on the 1.9 million acres.

The nonpartisan Center for American Progress found that 31 national monuments are at risk of having protections reduced or revoked under the Trump administration. But that would jeopardize some of the water on those landscapes, which provide drinking water for millions of people.

A Trump Department of Justice opinion says that presidents have the authority to revoke or shrink national monuments—bucking over 100 years of legal precedent.

Local conservation watchdog group Wilderness Workshop will celebrate the Antiquities Act Wednesday night at the Third Street Center gym in Carbondale.…