Interior Considers Opening National Monuments to Mining (2)

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum signed an executive order late Monday directing his deputies to submit a plan to him within 15 days for opening federal lands to more mining, including national monuments currently off limits to miners.

Burgum’s order, which doesn’t explicitly use the term “national monument,” calls for Interior assistant secretaries to, among many things, “review and, as appropriate, revise all withdrawn public lands, consistent with existing law,” citing US code allowing presidents to designate national monuments and withdraw them from mineral development.

The order is a first step in opening Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante and many ...