US President Donald Trump on Monday issued dual executive orders (EOs) reducing the size of two national monuments in Utah containing ancient cliff dwellings and petroglyphs by nearly three million acres, or about 90 percent each.
The first order diminishes the size of Bears Ears National Monument from approximately 1.36 million acres to 121,100 acres, and the second reduces Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument from 1.87 million acres to about 181,500 acres. Trump calls this action “rightsizing,” and conveyed in his EO factsheet that this reduces the monuments to their appropriate sizes and allows for “common sense land use.”
His administration used the Antiquities Act as their source of legal authority for descaling the monuments, an act designed to protect federal lands by declaring them national monuments, or areas preserved as archeological sites, historic landmarks, and cultural heritage sites. Specifically, Trump relied on the phrasing “the President is to reserve the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected,” as his authority to scale down the size of the monuments.
Use of the Act in this manner has sparked backlash and legal debate as the Supreme Court has confirmed the president’s ability to create these monuments, but has not ruled on the president’s authority to change the boundaries of existing monuments.
At the signing of the EOs, Trump bolstered the narrative that he is returning land to the people Utah, stating that former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama “took the land away from the people” when they designated Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears as national monuments. “You can’t do anything,” he said in reference to authorized uses of the land, “You can’t go hunting. You can’t go fishing. You can’t do anything. You can virtually not even walk on it.”
However, this sentiment furthered by Trump and other Utah lawmakers is false and per the Bureau of Land Management the monuments are open for hiking, camping, hunting, fishing, horseback riding, and in some areas rock climbing.
This is not the first time Trump has attempted to scale down the size of these historic sites. In 2017, during his first presidential term, he signed an order reducing the size of Bears Ears to 201,876 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante to about 1 million acres—much smaller reductions than those in his current orders.
Native nations represented by Native American Rights Fund (NARF), along with environmental conservation groups such as Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), and Earthjustice promptly sued for illegally reducing the size of the monuments, filing multiple suits against the administration alleging that only Congress may alter the size of a monument. While the suits were pending, multiple mining and drilling claims were filed in Bears Ears, prompting then-President Joe Biden to reverse Trump’s actions and restore the monuments to their original size. The suits have been consolidated and remain active in US District Court where they are facing a stay.
Environmental groups such as SUWA, Earthjustice, and Conservation Land Foundation have vowed again to take legal action against Trump for his “unlawful” actions. SUWA indicated in a press release that the reductions “make it clear that Utah is the epicenter of Republican efforts to dismantle and obliterate America’s system of public lands,” and Earthjustice conveyed that the proclamations are “a slap to the face of public lands visitors across the country, as well as the local communities and Tribes that have worked for years to protect these special places.”
