SALT LAKE CITY (AP) The U.S. government will allow oil and gas companies to make lease bids Monday on lands considered archaeologically sensitive near a national monument stretching across the Utah-Colorado border that houses sacred tribal sites.

Included in the Bureau of Land Management s September oil and gas lease sale is about 47 square miles (122 square kilometers) of land north of Hovenweep National Monument, a group of prehistoric villages overlooking a canyon with connections to several indigenous tribes throughout the U.S. Southwest. The parcels for lease are about five to 20 miles (eight to 32 kilometers) north of the monument.

The sale comes amid an ongoing debate over drilling in states like Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, where a coalition of tribes are calling for a halt on energy development near land that Native Americans consider sacred.

The Trump administration has pushed to open vast expanses of public lands to oil and gas drilling, speed up the construction of petroleum pipelines and ease federal environmental regulations, dismissing calls from scientists in and out of government that immediate cuts in oil, gas and coal emissions are required to stave off the worst of climate change.

The plan was met with criticism from environmentalists and tribal organizations, who argued drilling on the high desert would damage the prehistoric structures and pollute the air.

When this oil and gas leasing happens on or near sacred lands, it risks de-stabilizing the bedrock (of the structures), said Ahjani Yepa, a member of Utah Din Bikyah, a Navajo grass-roots organization. Hovenweep is in all of our stories, and to threaten the integrity of these structures jeopardizes everything weve carried forward as resilient people.