President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Wednesday instructing the Interior Department to review national monument designations made over the past two decades, an action that could upend protections put in place in Utah and other states where officials have objected to federal safeguards.
  Â
The Antiquities Act of 1906 authorizes the president to declare federal lands of historic or scientific value to be "national monuments" and restrict how the lands can be used.
  Â
President Barack Obama infuriated Utah Republicans when he created the Bears Ears National Monument in December on more than 1 million acres of land that's sacred to Native Americans and home to tens of thousands of archaeological sites.
  Â
Republicans have asked Trump to reverse the designation, saying it will close the area to new energy development.
(Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
