December 7, 2017 — Protections of a marine national monument made up of underwater mountains and canyons 130 miles off the coast of Cape Cod could be at risk after President Donald Trump significantly scaled back the boundaries of two national monuments in Utah Monday – the biggest reduction of monument protections in U.S. history.
On Tuesday, U.S. Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke officially released his review of the designations of 27 national monuments, including the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts in the Atlantic Ocean.
The three-million-acre monument was designated in September 2016 by former-president Barrack Obama under authority granted by the 1906 Antiquities Act. Since then, commercial fishing, with the exception of lobster and red crab fishing, has been banned within the monuments boundaries.