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Democracy Now!
Executive Order Could Open Millions of Acres to Resource Extraction
Among today's top news headlines, President Trump ordered a review of national monuments, potentially opening up millions of acres of public lands to drilling, mining and logging. Trump said Wednesday his executive order was aimed at reversing President Obama’s use of the 1906 Antiquities Act to protect federal land from development.
President Donald Trump: "The Antiquities Act does not give the federal government unlimited power to lock up millions of acres of land, and water, and it’s time that we ended this abusive practice."
Conservationists blasted the Trump administration’s unprecedented move to scale back national monuments, and promised legal challenges. Randi Spivak of the Center for Biological Diversity said, "Their goal is to hand our public lands over to corporations to mine, frack, bulldoze and clear-cut 'til there's nothing left to dig up."
Featured image: Giant Sequoia trunk | Matthew Fern/CC BY-SA 3.0
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