BY BILL HEDDEN
There is a sharp contrast between the intense public debate that preceded President Obama’s designation of the Bears Ears National Monument and President Clinton’s stealth designation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante monument.
When Clinton read the proclamation at the south rim of the Grand Canyon in 1996, scarcely anybody knew what he was about to do. Although the landscape is extraordinary and increasingly valuable on a scientific level, there is validity to the claim that the public was cut out of the process. Utah politicians have made hay for decades by howling over the injustice, yet their actions and those of Congress have validated the monument in several concrete ways that have proven enormously beneficial to Utah.
Shrinking or rescinding the monument now would raise many thorny questions...