Sierra Club is reporting that the administration has threatened to strip protections from over 3.2 million acres of public lands in multiple states, opening them up for industrial drilling, mining and extraction. It said these actions follow previous attacks on Utah's Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
The organization said the Bureau of Land Management is now stripping protections around Greater Chaco in New Mexico, which threatens sacred ancestral sites and ancient pueblos of immense cultural importance. The Sierra Club characterized this as a systematic handover of public lands to corporate polluters, risking the health of local Native American communities, clean air and irreplaceable history.
The Sierra Club said it is working on Capitol Hill to pressure lawmakers to block federal funding for development on these lands. It also said it is partnering with Tribal Nations and local allies to stop immediate encroachment and mobilizing public participation in official comment periods. Its legal teams are investigating challenges to defend these places, including upholding the principle that no president can erase national monument protections.