Utah Republican Congresswoman Celeste Maloy wants to discard a collaborative plan for managing the Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument. This end run against a plan that was inclusive and two years in the making, writes Stephen Trimble, would leave much of the monument unprotected from extractive industry and off-road vehicles.
It would also set a precedent here and across the nation that could upend public lands protection for years, Trimble adds. Even the deeply conservative Mountain States Legal Foundation said it fears a “Wild West” for land-use planning if Congress acts on Maloy’s radical approach.