Group sues DOI over oil, gas leases near Bears Ears, archeological sites
A conservation group sued the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C., federal court on Thursday over 32 Trump-era oil and gas leases in Utah, alleging that the DOI proceeded without properly assessing their impacts on the area’s archaeology and nature including in the nearby Bears Ears National Monument.
Friends of Cedar Mesa, whose staff met Wednesday with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland as she visited the monument’s visitor center, claims in its lawsuit that the DOI has violated the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when it auctioned off terrain in 2018 near the monument’s earlier boundaries, before former president Donald Trump scaled them back in 2017.
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