Federal Government Policy and Business

More national monuments should be opened for exploitation, Zinke says

The Guardian: The Trump administration faces a fresh legal battle from environmental groups after the interior department recommended that 10 national monuments be resized or opened up to mining, logging and other industrial purposes.

In a leaked memo, the interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, wrote that the boundaries of some national monuments were “arbitrary or likely politically motivated or boundaries could not be supported by science or reasons of resource management”.

Zinke, who was tasked by Trump in April to review 27 land and ocean monuments created since 1996, wrote that 10 protected areas from Maine to the southern Pacific Ocean must be either shrunk or modified so more mining and other “traditional uses” be allowed.

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