Action Alerts

Defend our national monuments

What's At Stake

Our national and marine monuments are under threat of commercial fishing, fossil fuel drilling, and mineral extraction — and we need your help. 

Since the Trump administration took office, it has wasted no time attempting to gut popular policies that protect clean air, clean water, and stable ecosystems. In its attempt to sell off and sell out our oceans and public lands to extractive industries, it has issued a series of attacks on our national and marine monuments. 

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The Trump administration just shrunk Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by over 90% to make room for coal and uranium mining, oil drilling, and offroad vehicles on these iconic public lands. While these attacks alone threaten 3.2 million acres of wildlife habitat, they could also set a precedent for similar attacks on national monuments across the country, placing even more public lands at risk.  By selling out our lands to extractive industries, the Trump administration has betrayed tribes who have stewarded these lands for millennia and broken a promise to future generations. 

They are also taking aim at our oceans by attempting to open national marine monuments — including Rose Atoll, the Ho‘omalu Zones of the Papahānaumokuākea, and the Mariana Trench — for commercial fishing. Beyond the fact that this will place the stability of delicate ocean ecosystems at risk, commercial fishing in our protected marine monuments wouldn’t even help the fishing industry: catch limits are regularly met even with those areas closed off, and marine life will struggle to maintain sustainable populations without the safe havens these monuments provide.  

No matter who is in the White House, one thing remains true: Americans of all political backgrounds want to conserve public lands and marine monuments where we can enjoy their rich biodiversity, clean air and water, jaw-dropping geologic features, and cultural sites. 

This is your chance to reach out to the Trump administration and let them know you won’t stand for America’s natural and historic heritage to be destroyed by extractive industries.  

First light over Cedar Mesa in southeast Utah, Bears Ears National Monument. Bears Ears is one of the national monuments that Earthjustice is fighting to preserve.
First light over Cedar Mesa in southeast Utah, Bears Ears National Monument. Bears Ears is one of the national monuments that Earthjustice is fighting to preserve. (MASON CUMMINGS / TWS)

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Your Actions Matter

Your messages make a difference, even if we have leaders who don't want to listen. Here's why.

You level the playing field.

Elected officials pay attention when they see that we are paying attention. Read more.

They may be hearing from industry lobbyists left and right, but hearing the stories of their constituents — that’s your power.

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Whether or not you voted for them, they work for you, for the duration of their term.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. (Find your local, state, and federal elected officials.)

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If a federal agency finalizes a harmful action, the record of public comments provides a basis for bringing them into court. Read more.

Throughout each of the public comment periods we alert you to, Earthjustice’s attorneys are researching and writing in-depth, technical comments to submit — detailing how the regulation could and should be stronger to protect the environment, our communities, and our planet.

We need you to join us — your specific experiences, knowledge, and voice are crucial to add to the Administrative Record through the comment periods.

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It’s the law.

Federal agencies must pause what they’re doing and ask for — and consider — your comment. Read more.

Many of us may have never heard of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), but laws like these require our government to ask the public to weigh in before agencies adopt or change regulations.

Regulations essentially describe how federal agencies will carry out laws — including decisions that could undermine science, or weaken safeguards on public health.

Public comments are collected at various points throughout the federal government’s rulemaking process, including when a regulation is proposed and finalized. (Learn about the rulemaking process.) These comments become part of the official, legal public record — the “Administrative Record.”

When the public responds with a huge outpouring of support for environmental protections, these individual messages collectively undercut politicians' attempts to claim otherwise.

What this means is each of us can take a role in shaping the rules our government creates — and ensuring those rules are fair and effective.