Secret plan for New Mexico’s national monuments draws lawsuit threats

Days after a highly anticipated report was delivered to President Donald Trump on the future of 27 national monuments, New Mexico politicians and conservation groups already are threatening lawsuits even though the report remains shrouded in secrecy. After delivering the report on Friday, U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke refused to release it. Attorney Susan Jane Brown with the Western Environmental Law Center is confident the courts eventually will conclude the Federal Land Policy and Management Act forbids the president from making changes to the monuments. Brown says the uncertainty Zinke has created about possible boundary changes is unacceptable. “It’s really a shocking situation we find ourselves in that public land management is shrouded in secrecy,” she states. “That’s not the way it’s been and it’s not the way it’s supposed to be, and certainly Teddy Roosevelt is rolling in his grave.”...more