Montana group sues Zinke for national monument info

PAGE, Ariz.

A Whitefish, Montana, conservation group is suing the federal government for ignoring their request for information about the Obama administration’s deliberations about five national monuments.

On May 24, Western Values Project filed a lawsuit against the Department of the Interior in the District of Columbia federal court. The group is accusing the federal agency of flouting the Freedom of Information Act by not responding to its Jan. 19 request for records “used or compiled to inform the development of five national monument proclamations,” according to court documents obtained by the Navajo Times.

The proclamations were issued by President Barack Obama pursuant to the Antiquities Act.

The five national monuments are Bears Ears (Shash Jaa’ in Diné bizaad) in Utah, Gold Butte in Nevada, Browns Canyon in Colorado, Katahdin Woods and Waters in Maine, and Cascade-Siskiyou in Oregon and California.

The group says Republicans have been pushing false claims that the Obama administration failed to gather public input into the designation of Shash Jaa’ and others.

The group had requested that the agency release the scientific studies and management plans, among others, made by the DOI.

“Secretary Zinke and the Trump administration have done everything they can to shut the public out of their sham review,” stated Chris Saeger, executive director of Western Values Project, “but we’re not going to let them get away with withholding basic information that they are required by law to disclose.”

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in late April instructing Zinke to review any national monument created since Jan. 1, 1966.

Zinke earlier this month was in Utah on a four-day listening tour, during which he journeyed through the Shash Jaa’ and the Grand Staircase-Escalante areas.

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