The most prominent Navajo opposed to the monument, Benally opened and closed Lee’s gathering in the Capitol’s elegant Gold Room. She called on environmental groups to quit “romanticizing and using Native Americans” for their political ends and decried the monument proposal for dividing tribal communities and tearing families apart. (Salt Lake Tribune)
These statements were recorded in Salt Lake City at the Utah State Capitol on December 19, 2016, in response to the threat from the Obama Administration to lock up 1.9 million acres in Southeastern Utah under the guise of the proposed Bears Ears National Monument.
San Juan County (proposed location of Bears Ears N.M.) Commissioner, Rebecca Benally
Utah State Representative Mike Noel (R)
United States Senator Mike Lee (R) Utah
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