BANGOR, MAINE — Today, President Donald Trump traveled to Bangor, Maine to issue a proclamation that opens up the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument to commercial fishing, threatening the destruction of this sensitive, biologically important marine reserve. It’s the latest in a long list of Trump’s environmental attacks launched under cover of national and international crises.

The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts off the New England coast was the first national marine monument to be designated in the Atlantic Ocean and is one of just five marine monuments nationwide. It protects 4,913 square miles of pristine ocean ecosystem – an area nearly the size of Connecticut, covering 1.5 percent of U.S. federal waters on the Atlantic Coast.

Trump tried to justify his action by claiming that designation of the monument by President Barack Obama in September 2016 under the Antiquities Act of 1906 was bad for fishing in the region.

But in fact, a 2018 study of data from the region showed that catch and revenue from some species […]