Udall: GAO to probe Interior moves on lands cut from Grand Staircase-Escalante monument

A government watchdog will investigate whether the U.S. Interior Department broke the law by making plans to open up lands cut from a Utah national monument by President Trump to leasing for oil, gas and coal development. U.S. Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico said Monday in a news release that the Government Accountability Office informed his office last week that it has agreed to his request that it look into whether the Interior violated the appropriations law by using funds to assess potential resource extraction in the lands cut from the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument...MORE

From Udall's press release:

“I welcome GAO’s decision to open an investigation into these seemingly unlawful actions by the Trump Interior Department. National monuments like Grand Staircase-Escalante protect some of our most spectacular wilderness areas and breathtaking lands, and it is imperative that the Department manage them in accordance with the laws passed by Congress. In the interest of preserving the rule of law, safeguarding taxpayer funds from mismanagement, and protecting a national treasure from permanent damage, the department should suspend all further work on the proposed management plan for Grand Staircase-Escalante until GAO is able to make a determination on this issue,” said Udall.

As Udall and McCollum observed in their original letter requesting the investigation, Interior’s decision to actively prepare for oil, gas, and coal leasing may violate a longstanding, 17-year old restriction on these very kinds of activities within the original and historic boundaries of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument—a restriction that Congress imposed following President Clinton’s designation of the monument that limited resource extraction. Since 2002, every Interior appropriations act has carried this provision, a provision designed to protect the original monument that recognized this “vast and austere” landscape whose “unspoiled landscape” is a geologic, paleontological, and scientific wonder. This appropriations provision is so broad, in fact, that it prohibits a whole suite of oil, gas, and coal planning activities “as the monument existed on January 20, 2001.” Put differently, congressional appropriations language prevents any oil, gas, and coal preleasing, leasing, or related activities within the national monument as it existed when President Clinton first designated and protected the area.

Udall and McCollum believe that the Trump administration has likely violated these clear Congressional prohibitions by spending appropriated funds on a range of oil, gas and coal development activities within the 2001 boundaries of Grand Staircase...