WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 -- Sen. Ben Ray Lujan issued the following press release:

U.S. Senators Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) led 34 senators in a letter to President Trump expressing strong opposition to his executive order reducing the boundaries of, and stripping protections from the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments in southern Utah. In the letter, the senators highlight how the executive order places irreplaceable cultural, historic, scientific, ecological, and recreational resources at risk of destruction and loss.

"By attempting, yet again, to eliminate vast portions of these monuments, your Adminis...