Post by @caroline.gleich

Cox says we asked for the shrinkage. Here’s his actual line. “Until you ask them, but do you support all the things that shrinking it actually does, and they say yes to that.” So let’s ask that question. What does shrinking a national monument actually do? It opens the land to mining and drilling. That’s the whole list. Hiking, camping, hunting, and grazing were always allowed. The only thing monument protection ever stood in the way of was the digging. Presidents have used the Antiquities Act 168 times. About half of our national parks started as national monuments, including Zion. The Grand Canyon was a monument under Teddy Roosevelt before it was ever a park. I have never met one person who wishes we’d mined it instead. No, Governor. We didn’t ask for this. We said what we said. We want the monuments.