WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has signed a wide-ranging public lands bill that creates five new national monuments and expands several national parks.
The legislation enacted Tuesday also permanently adds 1.3 million acres of new wilderness and reauthorizes the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, which supports conservation and outdoor recreation projects nationwide. It’s the largest public lands bill Congress has considered in a decade, and it won large bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate.
More than 100 land and water conservation bills were combined to designate more than 350 miles of river as wild and scenic. Nearly 700,000 acres of new recreation and conservation areas were also created under the measure.
The new law also withdraws 370,000 acres in Montana and Washington state from mineral development.
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