Heinrich Applauds Biden’s Restoration Of National Monuments

WASHINGTON (Oct. 8, 2021) – U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is commending President Joe Biden for restoring the protections of Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monuments. The White House announced that the President will sign three proclamations today as part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s effort to better protect, conserve, and restore the lands and waters that sustain the health of communities and power our economy.

“Our public lands are part of the fabric of our democracy. I thank President Biden for recognizing the extraordinary history of these landscapes and protecting them for future generations,” said Heinrich. 

“Bears Ears National Monument in particular is home to living histories and the living cultural landscapes that are sacred to Tribal Nations throughout the Southwest,"Heinrich continued. "Now that President Biden has restored these important protections, I hope that his administration under the leadership of Secretary Deb Haaland will manage Bears Ears in close coordination with the Tribal Nations who continue to have strong cultural ties to its dramatic landscape of rim rock canyons and mesas."

In 2017, Senator Heinrich condemned former President Donald Trump’s unprecedented and unlawful proclamation that erased protections and drastically shrunk the boundaries of both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments that hold important scientific, scenic, ecological, and cultural resources. In April, Senator Heinrich sent a letter to U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland urging her to recommend that President Biden undo the Trump administration’s attacks on national monuments and the Antiquities Act.

“Today marks progress in turning the page on President Trump’s shameful and reckless attacks on America’s treasured public lands. Those actions betrayed the more-than-a-century long history of presidents from both political parties using their powers under the Antiquities Act to protect landscapes with important natural, scientific, and cultural resources like Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts,” said Heinrich. “Each of these National Monuments tells us who we are as Americans. We have a responsibility to protect and conserve them for future generations."