1. United States
2. Mo.
3. Letter

"I have hiked Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. Camped there. Spent weeks in that canyon country every spring. It was never locked up. It was never closed to the public. Any American could walk in. What the monument designation closed was mining. Drilling. Industrial extraction. That is the only thing that changed on July 13, 2026 when three million acres were stripped of protection in a single signature — it became available for copper mining, uranium extraction, and oil drilling. The proclamation says so by name. Tribal nations stewarded this land for thousands of years and were not consulted. Hunters, hikers, climbers, and outfitters who built businesses around this landscape were not consulted. The access argument is false. The land was never locked up. It was protected. Those are not the same thing — and the difference is now three million acres of canyon wilderness opened to industry. Restore protections for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante."