1. United States
2. Utah
3. Letter

Restore Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to its full original boundaries. The claims coming from Utah political leaders — that monument protections shut down recreation, hunting, and grazing — are flat-out false. The only activity the monument designation actually prohibits is destructive minerals extraction. Every other use continues under Bureau of Land Management multiple-use rules, exactly as it did when the monument was first established. This land holds five distinct life zones, piñon and juniper trees up to 1,400 years old, and archaeological sites stretching back to the Anasazi and Fremont cultures. It sits at the heart of one of the most spectacular landscapes in the country, surrounded by Bryce Canyon, the Grand Canyon, and Lake Powell. Tourism built around that landscape generates real, lasting jobs — not the speculative coal extraction that was already considered economically unfeasible before protections were ever put in place. Dirty, destructive extractive industries have no business threatening this irreplaceable public land. The monument's original boundaries existed for good reason. Shrinking them was a gift to mining interests dressed up as concern for local communities. Restore the monument now.