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Romney and Utah Officials Side with Anti-Public Lands Extremists

HELENA, MT – Republican Utah Senator Mitt Romney is joining extremist anti-public lands Utah Senator Mike Lee in backing former President Trump’s illegal revocation and reduction of national monuments despite local county government support for the immediate restoration of Bears Ears National Monument. Research released by Accountable.US exposes Senator Romney’s ties and history of working with oil-funded special interest front-groups who oppose public land protections and national monument designations.  

“While Trump may be out of office, he clearly still has plenty of cronies willing to do his bidding in Congress, including Senator Romney. The unilateral and illegal revocation and reduction of national monuments by President Trump usurped congressional authority — something that the Utah Senate delegation is apparently willing to cede. Senator Romney and Utah officials would better serve their constituents if they spent more time focused on addressing the ongoing pandemic and getting people back to work,” said Accountable.US spokesperson Jayson O’Neill. 

Senator Romney previously praised Trump’s illegal decision to cut public land protections and signed onto a bill that would ban national monument designations in the state. Emails and public documents obtained by the New York Times found that oil and gas was the central impetus for the Trump administration’s illegal act. 

Below is a look at the history of Senator Romney’s anti-public lands agenda: 

  • Mitt Romney’s Northern Utah Director used to work for a Koch-Funded dark money group to undermine national monument designations. [KSL, 05/22/17] 
  • Mitt Romney was featured at an event hosted by the Foundation for Integrated Resource Management (FIRM), a taxpayer-funded, anti-public lands group.  [The St. George Spectrum, 03/27/18]  
  • Mitt Romney praised Donald Trump for unilaterally gutting Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. [The St. George Spectrum, 03/05/18]  
  • Mitt Romney signed onto a bill that would ban new national monuments in Utah. “Sen. Mitt Romney signed onto the Protect Utah’s Rural Economy (PURE) Act as introduced by Utah’s Sen. Mike Lee, a bill that excludes Utah from the Antiquities Act. […] The Protect Utah’s Rural Economy (PURE) Act hands the power to proclaim land as a federally protected monument from the federal government to Utah’s government.” [KUTV, 01/12/19]

Read the full Accountable.US research here. 

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