Washington • The Interior Department has canceled a proposal from the Bureau of Land Management that would have allowed some 1,600 acres to be sold off inside the previous boundaries of southern Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
The department’s deputy secretary, David Bernhardt, sent a memo to BLM officials Friday reversing part of a management plan for the 900,000 acres that President Donald Trump removed from national monument status in December.
Secretary Ryan Zinke, a former Montana congressman who has insisted that he opposes selling off public lands, read about the management plan in the news media.