Trump Shrinks Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments

On July 13, 2026, President Trump signed a pair of executive proclamations in the Oval Office reducing the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in southern Utah, removing what he described as roughly 3 million acres from the two designations; reporting placed the reduction of Bears Ears at about 91 percent. Trump was joined by Utah's full congressional delegation, Gov. Spencer Cox, and state House Speaker Mike Schultz. Sen. Mike Lee, who had pressed for the cuts, framed the move as respecting limits Congress placed on the Antiquities Act. The action closely mirrors Trump's 2017 first-term order shrinking the same monuments, which President Biden reversed in 2021.

The monuments were established under the Antiquities Act by Presidents Clinton (Grand Staircase-Escalante, 1996) and Obama (Bears Ears, 2016), the latter under an intertribal co-stewardship framework. Tribal advocates and conservation groups argue the reductions bypass the government's Tribal-consultation obligations and reopen protected land to grazing, new mining claims, and energy development, though federal land managers had previously found limited oil and gas potential in the areas. The dispute renews a decade-long fight over the scope of presidential monument authority.

The proclamations are in effect. Conservation groups signaled they are preparing legal challenges, echoing the litigation that followed the 2017 reductions; no court has yet ruled.