Action Alerts

Defend our national monuments

What's At Stake

Our national monuments are under threat of fossil fuel and mineral development, and we need your help.  

Since the Trump administration took office, they have wasted no time in attempting to roll back popular life-saving policies that protect clean air, clean water, and our progress towards a safe and stable climate. A series of executive orders direct the Department of Interior to find ways to open public lands to fossil fuel extraction and mining, amounting to a gift to fossil fuel industry executives who stand to profit from stripped protections. 

Read More

These monuments have broad, local, bipartisan support. Indigenous and local communities fought across many administrations to protect these places and Trump’s actions put at risk countless sacred sites, landscapes, and cultural resources.  

Americans do not want our public lands given over to extractive industries at the expense of outdoor recreation opportunities, local businesses, open land, wildlife, and clean air and water. No matter who is in the White House, one thing remains true: Americans of all political persuasions want to conserve public lands where we can enjoy their rich biodiversity, clean air and water, and the many unique opportunities to see ancient fossils, jaw-dropping geologic features, or cultural sites whose preservation is essential to Indigenous peoples.

National monuments and our public lands are cherished nationwide. Rather than protecting the cultural treasures, world-renowned fossils, historic places, and one-of-a-kind ecosystems that monuments like Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante and Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni hold, this administration is laying the groundwork to  sell these lands to the highest bidder. This is your chance to reach out to Interior Secretary Burgum and let him know you won’t stand for America’s natural and historic heritage to be sold to the highest bidder.  

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)

Delivery to Department of the Interior

Important Notice

Your message is delivered to a public agency, and all information submitted may be placed in the public record. Do not submit confidential information.

By taking action, you will receive emails from Earthjustice. Change your mailing preferences or opt-out at any time. Learn more in our Privacy Policy. This Earthjustice action is hosted on EveryAction. Learn about EveryAction’s Privacy Policy.

Why is a phone number or prefix required on some action forms?

Trouble Viewing This Action?

If the action form is not loading above, please add earthjustice.org as a trusted website in your ad blocker or pause any ad blockers, and refresh this webpage. (Details.) If the action form still does not display, please report the problem to us at action@earthjustice.org. Thank you!

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.

Our legislators serve at the pleasure of the people who gave them their job — you.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. When you contact your elected official, you’re putting a face and a name on an issue.

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.)

Your action is with us in court.

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.

Lawsuits we file that challenge weak or harmful federal regulations rely on what was submitted during the comment period. The court can only look at documents that are in the Administrative Record — including the public comments — to decide if the agency did something improper.

Your actions aid our litigation. Taking action and submitting comments during a comment period is substantively important.

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.