The Energy 202: A federal watchdog is investigating Trump administration's decisions on Utah monumen

[mahatmakanejeeves]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Omaha Steve (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: Washington Post

PowerPost | Analysis
The Energy 202: A federal watchdog is investigating Trump administration's decisions on Utah monument

By Dino Grandoni, Reporter covering energy and environmental policy
June 18 at 8:12 AM

THE LIGHTBULB

A federal watchdog agency will investigate whether the Trump administration broke the law by preparing lands within the old boundaries of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument for potential fossil-fuel leasing.

The Government Accountability Office will probe whether the Interior Department, in charge of managing most U.S. public lands, went against spending instructions from Congress when it used federal funds to assess the suitability of lands once within the massive protected area in Utah for coal, oil and natural gas extraction.

Congressional Democrats have already criticized the decision as illegal. It was the top Democrats on the Senate and House Appropriations subcommittees on the interior, Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), who asked in May for the GAO to investigate the potential leasing activities on the more than 800,000 acres President Trump withdrew from the national monument.

In their complaint, McCollum and Udall point to a 2002 spending law that prohibits a number of activities, including fossil-fuel leasing, within the Staircase-Escalante “as the monument existed on January 20, 2001.”
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Dino Grandoni is an energy and environmental policy reporter and the author of PowerPost's daily tipsheet on the beat, The Energy 202. Before The Post, he was the climate and energy reporter at BuzzFeed News, where he covered the intersection of science, industry and government. Follow https://twitter.com/dino_grandoni

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2019/06/18/the-energy-202-a-federal-watchdog-is-investigating-trump-administration-s-decisions-on-utah-monument/5d07b4c8a7a0a4586bb2db10/

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The Post labeled this "analysis," but it looks like news to me.

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The Energy 202: A federal watchdog is investigating Trump administration's decisions on Utah monument

Link to tweet

[Honeycombe8]

1. Investigate? And who is going to do what if it was illegal? nt

[ancianita]

2. Maybe then the state of Utah can obtain a court injunction? nt

[Hortensis]

3. Well, that depends on whether Democrats are given the

power to act or not, as always? This monument and these regulations came about mainly because of the kind of people who are all now Democrats or Democratic voters. Progressive conservative Teddy Roosevelt created the Antiquities act over a century ago now, and President Clinton used that power to create the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Given what the Republicans have become, if they have the power to destroy them, they will. If they can corrupt the GAO to serve business, they will.

It's become dreadfully simple, hasn't it?

[Omaha Steve]

4. After a review by forum hosts....LOCKING

Analysis, just as the Washington Post identifies it as being: "PowerPost Analysis.