BANGOR DAILY NEWS • October 11, 2021
On Friday, President Joe Biden reinstated protections for three national monuments, including a marine monument off the coast of New England. The move is a reversal of policy from the Trump administration, which weakened protections and shrank several national monuments to allow more oil and gas extraction, mining and grazing. A Trump-era review of the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument left the monument intact. With Friday’s announcement, the Biden administration restored the size and protections of the two Utah monuments. It also resumed a prohibition of most commercial fishing in the New England marine monument, although lobster and crab harvesting will be allowed there until Sept. 15, 2023. The canyons and seamounts and two Utah historical and geographic landscapes were worthy of protection when former presidents designated them as national monuments and they remain so today.