1. United States
2. Mo.
3. Letter

"The administration claims monument designation blocks public access. That is false. I spend four to eight weeks every spring hiking and camping in Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. That land has been open to me precisely because it was protected. Monument status blocks mining — not people. On July 13, 2026, both monuments were reduced by 90% — nearly three million acres opened to mining, drilling, and industrial extraction. The Bears Ears proclamation explicitly cites copper and uranium as the rationale. The tribal nations who stewarded this land for thousands of years were not consulted. Your party champions wild places — the freedom to hunt, hike, and roam hard country. Bears Ears and Grand Staircase are exactly that. You cannot stand for rugged independence and the American outdoors while opening three million acres of canyon wilderness to mining. Once a mine goes in, the wild country is gone. That is not politics. It is physical fact. This is the same pattern playing out at Big Bend National Park, where contractors are grading roads through one of America's last wild places to build the most expensive border wall in history in the sector with the lowest border crossings in the country. Monument after monument, protection after protection — stripped away under the false claim that protecting public land hurts the public. I am asking you to oppose these reductions and demand Congress restore protections before mining equipment makes it permanent."