President Trump shrinks Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante — again

Evening in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Photo: U.S. Bureau of Land Management

Monuments slashed by about 3 million acres. Utah Republicans applaud the move, while Democrats, conservation groups and tribal leaders vow to fight

Washington, D.C. – President Donald Trump signed a pair of executive orders on Monday to again shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah — this time more dramatically, by about 3 million acres or 90% of their original size.

Utah’s all-Republican congressional delegation, Gov. Spencer Cox and House Speaker Mike Schultz stood around Trump’s desk in the Oval Office during the closed-door signing that was live-streamed on YouTube by the White House.

“Let’s sign,” Trump said as he put pen to paper. “This is very nice. I’m very happy about this. And better than the first time.”

While signing the second executive order, Trump added: “Almost 3 million acres, going to be well taken care of now.”

The move continues a longstanding game of tug-of-war between multiple presidential administrations that has changed the boundaries of the national monuments several times over nearly a decade.

It also marks the second time Trump has slashed the size of the monuments.

In 2017, during his first term as president, Trump shrank Bears Ears from about 1.35 million acres to roughly 228,000 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante from about 1.87 million acres to roughly 1 million acres. In 2021, former President Joe Biden restored both of the monuments to their original sizes, to frustration from Republicans and applause from conservation groups and tribes.

This time, Trump shrunk Bears Ears to about 121,000 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante to about 182,000 acres, according to a news release issued by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s office.

When he cut the national monuments the first time nearly 10 years ago, Trump’s cuts were applauded by Republican state elected leaders, saying it freed the land from federal control and allowed more public access for hunting, ranching and economic development. Conservation groups and tribes reacted with outrage and lawsuits, arguing Trump lacked the authority to downsize the protections. Bears Ears in particular has deep spiritual and cultural significance for tribes.

Utah Republicans cheer

On Monday, Utah’s top Republican leaders again lauded Trump’s reduction of both monuments, saying it will better allow the lands to be managed and preserved while also enabling better public access. They said the monuments’ smaller sizes provides more targeted protection for valuable land, arguing the original designations spanned too large.

“We deeply value these natural, cultural, and scientific treasures,” Cox, Utah’s governor, said in a prepared statement. “The question has never been whether to protect them, but how to protect them best. The historic landmarks and other nationally significant resources remain under federal protection, while allowing agencies to direct limited resources toward caring for these specific sites rather than millions of surrounding acres.”

Utah Sen. Mike Lee, while standing in the Oval Office behind Trump, said the Antiquities Act has been “abused” by turning larger than necessary swaths of land into monuments. Trump, he said, “is right-sizing it to bring it in compliance with what the law says.”

“These are 3 million acres. As I explained to President Biden, that’s two Delawares,” Lee said.

Utah Rep. Celeste Maloy said both monuments were created “over the unanimous opposition of Utah’s federal delegation, our governors, county commissioners, the locals who were worried about losing multiple uses on these federal lands.”

She applauded Trump for “listening to the people of Utah and saying, ‘We know you value this land, you want it used for multiple use and not locked up.’ And so this is a very different process in how the monuments were created.”

Trump’s orders also come after Lee and Maloy crafted a proposal to repeal Biden-era standards for managing the vast Grand Staircase monument, calling them too restrictive on uses like road access and too far from what neighboring communities wanted. That plan, however, has since stalled.

Environmental groups, tribal leaders and Utah Democrats express outrage

Members of the Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition issued a lengthy statement strongly condemning the move to “virtually eliminate” the monuments while calling for “the defense and protection” of their ancestral lands.

“Our Tribes were not informed of or asked about this decision, and that’s unacceptable. The federal government must honor its Trust and Treaty obligations to our Tribes — it is not optional,” Autumn Gillard, inter-tribal coalition coordinator who is a descendent of the Cedar Band of Paiutes, said in a prepared statement. “Today’s action is a direct strike against the federal government’s duty to consult with Tribes. It also profoundly disrespects our intergenerational Traditional Knowledge by destroying a framework for Tribal co-stewardship over our ancestral lands in which we invested years of effort. Today’s action cannot stand.”

Utah House’s top Democrat, Minority Leader Angela Romero — who is the first and only enrolled member of a federally recognized tribe to serve in the Utah House — said in a prepared statement that “this back-and-forth with every administration has to stop.”

“These lands deserve the protections that come with national monument status,” she said. “Less than a decade ago, the Trump administration reduced protections for these same monuments despite overwhelming public support and the objections of the Tribal Nations whose ancestors have lived on these lands for thousands of years.”

Romero said the federal government “should honor Tribal Nations’ wishes by protecting these sacred lands from unnecessary development and overuse.”

“These are places where Tribal history, culture, and spiritual traditions continue today. Future generations deserve the opportunity to experience these places as they have existed for centuries,” Romero said.

The Center for Western Priorities, a conservation advocacy group, issued a news release after Monday’s signing saying Trump shrunk the monuments “based on false information.”

The group pointed to a moment during the signing when Trump falsely said: “You can’t do anything. You can’t go hunting. You can’t go fishing. You can’t do anything. You can virtually not even walk on it.”

“That’s exactly right, sir,” Deputy Interior Secretary Kate MacGregor told the president in response. “So you are remedying that today.”

Bears Ears and Grand Staircase “explicitly allow hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation inside the monuments,” the Center for Western Priorities said, while also pointing to Utah’s own hunting regulations.

The Center also said McGregor “misled” Trump when she said the first monuments established by former President Teddy Roosevelt with the Antiquities Act were small in size.

“In fact, Teddy Roosevelt used the Antiquities Act to protect 800,000 acres of public land at the Grand Canyon,” the center said. “The Supreme Court later confirmed that such landscape-scale protections were proper under the Antiquities Act, and that large landscapes were considered ‘objects’ under the Act.”

Aaron Weiss, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, accused MacGregor of misleading the president.

“We all know that President Trump has very little understanding of what he’s told to sign,” Weiss said. “But Kate MacGregor knows better. Giving the president documents to sign based on false information is unconscionable. If she’s going to take over running America’s public lands while Doug Burgum plays pool boy, the least she can do is be honest with the president and the American people.”

Tracy Stone-Manning, president of The Wilderness Society, pledged the group “will fight this attack and stand with everyone working to protect these remarkable places.”

“National monuments protect extraordinary wildlife, irreplaceable cultural and Tribal heritage, and our freedom to explore some of our country’s iconic landscapes. They belong to all of us,” she said in a prepared statement.

Stone-Manning said Trump’s administration is “on the wrong side of history here, ignoring the voices of Tribal Nations, local communities, and the millions of Americans who want these places protected for future generations.”

“As our nation marks 250 years, these public lands should be handed down, not over to drilling and mining interests,” she said.

A group of Democratic members of Congress and tribal leaders plan to hold a virtual news conference Tuesday morning to condemn the “attacks” on the monuments.

Ben McAdams — who is likely to return to Congress as Utah’s only Democrat next year — also issued a statement vowing to fight the reductions.

“Utahns deserve a say in what happens to the land that belongs to them. I’m not backing down from this fight, and I’m not going to stop until it’s reversed,” McAdams said.

Legal challenges loom

Trump’s latest pair of executive orders are sure to draw legal challenges, as did the first time he shrank the monuments. Lawsuits from tribes, conservation groups and businesses challenging those 2017 cuts were put on hold in early 2021 and remained pending in federal court before Biden restored the monuments later that year.

On Monday, Scott Braden, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, vowed in a prepared statement that the nonprofit devoted to protecting Utah’s red rock wilderness would “challenge this unlawful decision in federal court.”

“Today’s action makes it clear that Utah is the epicenter of Republican efforts to dismantle and obliterate America’s system of public lands,” Braden said in a prepared statement issued Monday. “President Trump’s outrageous attack on Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monument was taken at the urging of Utah politicians – Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis, Governor Spencer Cox, and the others – who championed this action. These two landscapes deserve to be protected for current and future generations of Utahns and Americans, not opened to exploitation.”

The Center for Western Priorities argued the Antiquities Act — a 1906 law that allows presidents to protect federal lands of historic or scientific interest by establishing them as national monuments — is a “one-way statute” that can’t be reversed.

In 1996, former President Bill Clinton first designated the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. In 2016, former President Barack Obama designated Bears Ears National Monument at the request of five sovereign Tribal nations.

“The Antiquities Act was a one-way statute when Teddy Roosevelt signed it into law. It was a one-way statute when President Trump tried to ignore it in 2017. It’s still a one-way statute today,” the Center for Western Priorities said in a prepared statement issued Friday, when news of Trump’s expected executive orders broke.

The Center for Western Priorities also noted that “just last month, Congress had a chance to weaken the management plan for Grand Staircase-Escalante and declined,” pointing to the failure of Maloy and Lee’s proposal.

“The American people have made it clear over and over again that they want our national monuments protected, not sold out to drilling and mining companies,” the Center for Western Priorities said. “President Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum would be wise to remember that.”

Braden also called Trump’s orders “unlawful, unwise and unacceptable.”

“These spectacular landscapes deserve to be protected for current and future generations, not opened to exploitation at the behest of Utah politicians,” Braden said in a prepared statement issued Friday ahead of the executive orders. “This action will only bring uncertainty and chaos to places that should instead be protected for their rich biodiversity, unique geology, and remarkable cultural values.”

Braden called Grand Staircase-Escalante a “crown jewel of America’s public lands” and Bears Ears an “incomparable cultural landscape.” He said the protection of both moments is “overwhelmingly popular with Utahns and Americans,” pointing to a 2024 poll conducted for the Grand Canyon Trust that found 71% and 74% of Utah voters supported keeping Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, respectively.

In 2023, a Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll found that about 42% of Utahns supported keeping Bears Ears its original size while 26% said they opposed.

This article was written by Katie McKellar for Utah News Dispatch.