Washington • A federal judge has denied the government’s effort to move the lawsuits against President Donald Trump’s shrinking of the Bears Ears and the Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments to Salt Lake City and will keep them here.
Judge Tanya S. Chutkan ruled Monday that the suits, filed by environmental groups and tribes, should be heard in the federal court in Washington.
The Justice Department, which is defending Trump, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and others who are named in the suits, had sought to move the case to the Utah federal court, arguing that the cases should be decided in state where the monuments are located.