Since taking office nearly eight years ago, President Obama has used the Antiquities Act of 1906 to create or expand 26 National Monuments protecting hundreds of millions of acres of federal land from future development, mining and other terrain-scarring uses. The new or expanded monuments are sprinkled across the states and U.S. territories, from the depths of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to the San Gabriel Mountains and Mojave Desert to a historical district in south Chicago. It’s an impressive effort to try to preserve landmarks and protect the natural beauty that defines so much of the nation.
The president should add one more: the proposed 1.9 million-acre Bears Ears National Monument, so named for two adjacent buttes in southeast Utah that, from a distance, look like a hatless Smokey Bear emerging over the horizon...