Trump slashes Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears monuments by more than 90% to open land for mining and drilling

President Donald Trump signed two proclamations at the White House on Monday that slash the size of the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments in southern Utah, opening hundreds of thousands of hectares of previously protected land to grazing, motorized recreation, logging, mining, and oil and gas extraction.

What the orders do

The orders reduce Grand Staircase-Escalante from roughly 1.87 million acres to about 181,500 acres, a 91 percent cut. Bears Ears shrinks from roughly 1.36 million acres to about 121,100 acres, a 90 percent reduction. Both monuments now sit at approximately 10 percent of their former size. Trump made the announcement alongside Utah Governor Spencer Cox and the state's two Republican senators, Mike Lee and John Curtis.

We're doing something very dramatic and very important for the people of Utah, and the people of our country, because many people use it.

Trump already reduced the monuments during his first term in 2017. Joe Biden restored them in 2021. Monday's cuts are deeper than the 2017 reductions.

Resource extraction rationale

The proclamations list critical minerals and energy reserves that the administration says are vital to US resource independence and national security. Grand Staircase-Escalante contains chromium, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, silver, thorium, titanium, uranium, vanadium, zinc, and zirconium, according to the White House text. "It is imperative that the United States not be dependent on foreign sources of these resources," the proclamation states. "Modifying the Monument's boundaries will help ensure that adequate domestic supplies exist, thereby reducing the threat posed by our Nation's reliance on foreign sources."

Republican officials framed the decision as a correction of federal overreach. Governor Cox said the Antiquities Act requires monument designations to be "the smallest area possible to protect the antiquities," adding that "these multimillion-acre monuments that are bigger than the state of Delaware certainly do not fit that designation."

Sacred landscapes and ancient sites

Bears Ears, created by Barack Obama in 2016, is named for the twin buttes that resemble a bear's head on the horizon. It holds archaeological and cultural sites sacred to several Native American tribes, including the Hopi, the Navajo, and the Ute Nation of Utah. Grand Staircase-Escalante, established by Bill Clinton in 1996, spans colourful rock formations, fossil-rich strata, and rock art dating back multiple millennia. Both monuments contain the iconic red-rock canyons and sandstone cliffs for which southern Utah is known.

This initiative will bring only uncertainty and chaos to places that should instead be protected for their rich biodiversity, unique geology, and extraordinary cultural values. Grand Staircase-Escalante is a jewel of American public lands and Bears Ears offers a landscape without equal.

Legal challenges ahead

Environmental groups quickly signalled they would fight the orders. Earthjustice, a public-interest environmental law firm, called the move illegal and said it would take legal action. Heidi McIntosh, the managing attorney for Earthjustice's Rocky Mountain office, said the attack on the monuments was "just as illegal today as it was in 2017." The firm argues that the Antiquities Act of 1906 grants presidents the power to create national monuments but not to reduce or eliminate them, which it says is Congress's prerogative. Earthjustice sued Trump over the 2017 cuts and is now reviewing new legal steps.

The Antiquities Act authorizes presidents to create national monuments, but it does not give them the power to reduce or eliminate them. Only Congress can do that.

A 2023 court ruling upheld that the Antiquities Act vests monument-designation authority with the sitting president.