WASHINGTON, D.C. — Senator Mike Lee’s (R-Utah) effort to use the Congressional Review Act to overturn the Bears Ears National Monument Resource Management Plan threatens a historic, collaborative process that brought together Tribal Nations, federal land managers, local communities, and other stakeholders to determine how this ecologically and culturally significant land should be managed. In weaponizing the Congressional Review Act, Sen. Lee would effectively cut Tribal Nations out of the collaborative management and co-stewardship framework embedded in the current management plan, making it harder to restore in the future. 

“The Bears Ears Resource Management Plan is a historic example of co-stewardship with Tribal nations that was developed through years of careful collaboration, consultation, and consent,” said Garrit Voggesser, senior director of Tribal partnerships at National Wildlife Federation. “Decisions on how to manage the land should be informed by Tribal leadership, meaningful public engagement, and the best available science – not a back-door process that silences Tribal input and prevents a substantially similar plan from being developed in the future.”