A year ago today, Donald Trump traveled to Salt Lake City to sabotage one of America’s oldest environmental laws.
On December 4, 2017, after a concerted pressure campaign by energy companies and conservative political operatives based in the Beehive State, President Trump signed an order to radically shrink two prominent national monuments there—the 1.3 million-acre Bears Ears National Monument that President Obama established in 2016, as well as the 1.8 million-acre Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument that President Clinton established in 1996.