Trump slashes Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears monuments

President Donald Trump signed proclamations Sunday cutting Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to about 181,500 acres and Bears Ears National Monument to about 121,100 acres. The White House called it “common sense land use.” The reductions would open surrounding lands to grazing, timber harvest, fishing, hunting, resource development, infrastructure upgrades and motorized recreation.

Bill Clinton established Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument on Sept. 18, 1996 to block development of coal reserves on the Kaiparowits Plateau. Trump cut about 860,000 acres from it in 2017, and Joe Biden restored it to about 1.87 million acres on Oct. 8, 2021. On June 24, 2026, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals revived Utah’s lawsuit challenging Biden’s restorations and sent the case back to district court.

Utah’s state government welcomed the reductions, saying the smaller size and scale would improve management, preservation and public access. The White House said the new boundaries better fit the Antiquities Act’s requirement that protected parcels be the smallest area compatible with proper care and management, a standard conservation lawyers have long argued is being used to justify far broader political reversals than the law intended.

Tribal leaders and conservation advocates say the cuts threaten places that carry scientific, cultural and spiritual meaning well beyond Utah’s border. The Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition said tribes were not informed or consulted before the decision and called it an attack on consultation and cultural heritage. Bears Ears, created in 2016, covered about 1.35 million acres and protected about 100,000 archaeological sites in the Four Corners region.