President Donald Trump Slashes Utah Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Monuments

President Donald Trump signed two executive orders on July 13, 2026 that reduced the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase‑Escalante national monuments in southern Utah. The proclamations removed roughly 3 million acres – about 90 percent of each monument – shrinking Bears Ears to about 121,000 acres and Grand Staircase‑Escalante to about 182,000 acres. The action reverses the larger designations made by President Joe Biden in 2021 and goes beyond Trump’s own 2017 reductions.

Utah officials praised the move. Governor Spencer Cox said, “The question has never been whether to protect them, but how to protect them best,” and Senator Mike Lee called the revisions “correcting an abuse of the Antiquities Act.” Tribal leaders and conservation groups condemned the reductions, warning that the cuts could open the land to mining, drilling and other development and that they disrespect sites sacred to Native American nations. Legal challenges are expected, as opponents question whether the Antiquities Act permits a president to substantially shrink a monument created by a predecessor. The decision is part of a broader Republican push to reshape federal land management and expand resource extraction on public lands.