"Senior Interior Department officials prepared last fall to eliminate the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument — even as they had yet to agree on the public justifications for doing so, according to newly disclosed internal documents.
Interior last week accidentally released thousands of pages of unredacted internal emails in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.
Copies of those emails, provided to E&E News by the Center for Western Priorities, detail Interior's strategy — including a focus on timber harvesting, mineral rights, and oil and gas extraction — as it reviewed the boundaries of more than two dozen national monuments under an executive order from President Trump.
The documents also disclose internal deliberations over the future of some marine monuments, including reintroducing commercial fishing to some sites and reducing the boundaries of others."
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