‘They manage it better’: Trump significantly reduces two national monuments in Utah for the second time, sparking backlash, support

Conservationists are rallying to protect two national monuments after President Donald Trump cut roughly 90% of their acreage, while Utah officials are praising the decision.

Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, said the federal government currently controls approximately two-thirds of Utah’s land. Trump’s proclamations Monday will place the land back into the people’s hands, allowing it to be used for grazing, fishing and logging, he said. 

“The Utahns love this land. They manage [the land] better than people 2,000 miles away,” Curtis said.

Trump reduced Bears Ears National Monument from approximately 1.36 million acres to 120,000 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument from approximately 1.87 million acres to 180,000 acres, according to a White House fact sheet.

While only Congress can create national parks, the Antiquities Act of 1906 allows the president to designate or reduce national monuments to protect “objects of historic or scientific interest,” according to another White House statement.

President Theodore Roosevelt signed the act into law and later designated the Grand Canyon as a national monument under its authority. Since then, numerous presidents have used the Antiquities Act to protect more than 300 landscapes and archaeological sites across the country, according to the National Park Service.

Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante contain large deposits of coal, oil and uranium, making them central to Trump’s push for greater domestic energy production. Opening portions of Bears Ears National Monument will create jobs and strengthen national security by reducing reliance on foreign sources of those resources, another White House statement said.

Trump’s proclamation has drawn backlash because of the monuments’ cultural and spiritual significance to many Indigenous tribes, according to the Conservation Lands Foundation.

Conservationists and Indigenous leaders worry reducing the monuments could expose the land to drilling and mining, potentially threatening natural resources, biodiversity and archaeological sites within Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante.

“From a Navajo perspective, Bears Ears is not simply a piece of federal public land,” Davina Smith-Idjesa, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and co-chair of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, told Fox News. “This is a living cultural site that holds our histories, our ceremonies, our traditional foods and medicines and our ancestors’ footprints.”

Some organizations have already begun legal challenges to Trump’s action, though those cases could take considerable time to resolve, according to KUER.

But Gov. Spencer Cox, R-Utah, said the presidential proclamation would not necessarily harm the land.

“This does not remove the protections that already exist in those areas,” Cox said. “It makes the monuments more manageable so that we have the resources to protect these antiquities.”

The dispute over Utah’s two national monuments dates back decades.

President Bill Clinton established Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996 to prevent mining companies from developing coal and other resources in the area. Clinton placed management of the monument under the Bureau of Land Management, according to the White House.

In 2016, President Barack Obama established Bears Ears National Monument, about 185 miles away, to protect the area’s history and cultural traditions. The Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service oversee Bears Ears, the White House said.

During his first term, Trump reduced both monuments by just under 1 million acres each, arguing their creation exceeded the authority granted under the Antiquities Act, according to the White House. President Joe Biden restored both monuments to their previous boundaries after taking office in 2021. Trump’s latest proclamation reduces Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante to their smallest sizes yet, KUER reported.

“The smallest area compatible with the objects to be protected [has] always been the standard with the Antiquities Act,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said during the signing. “President Biden, President Clinton, President Obama overlooked that standard and Trump is fixing that today.”