- President Donald Trump signed an executive order reducing sizes of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
- Gov. Spencer Cox supported the decision, calling it a big day for Utah.
- Environmental groups opposed the order, anticipating renewed legal challenges over monument sizes.
SALT LAKE CITY — President Donald Trump has once again ordered the sizes of two monuments in southern Utah to be reduced, but his new order will make them smaller than they were before.
Trump signed an executive order on Monday shrinking the sizes of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments to 121,000 acres and 182,000 acres, respectively. The combined total is approximately a quarter of the previous sizes he shrank them down to in 2017, and a tenth of their original sizes.
Almost 3 million acres "are going to be well taken care of now," the president said as he signed both orders.
"We've done something that I think was very desperately needed. It was very unfair to the people of Utah, and now fairness has been brought back. It's going to be better taken care of," he said.
Gov. Spencer Cox and members of Utah's congressional delegation, who attended the signing ceremony at the White House, applauded as Trump signed both orders. They argued that the new size is the smallest possible while protecting important objects within both monuments.
"This is a big day for Utah. ... We need to rightsize these monuments," Cox said.
Conservation groups and Utah's Democratic delegation were less thrilled. Ben McAdams, the Democratic candidate in the new and more left-leaning first congressional district, asserted that the move will open the door for special interest groups looking to mine or drill on land that was previously protected.
"I'll stand with the tribal nations, sportsmen and women, local businesses, Utahns and Americans nationwide who believe these lands should stay in public hands. ... These lands belong to the families who hunt them, hike them, camp on them, make a living because of them, and hope to pass them on to their kids," he said in a statement.
Both national monuments have become political footballs over the past decade. Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, both Democrats, designated Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments between 1996 and 2016. Combined, they covered more than 3.2 million acres of land in Utah.
Trump, a Republican, signed an order in 2017 shrinking the overall size of the two to nearly 1.23 million acres, but that order was reversed by President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in 2021.
The timing of Trump's latest order wasn't too surprising. The Deseret News reported that it would be signed on Monday, which came as multiple environmental and conservation organizations, who have been opposed to shrinking the size of the monuments, said Friday that a new order reducing the sizes of the monuments was imminent.
Groups like Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society and Center for Western Priorities vowed to protect what they referred to as "iconic, irreplaceable natural places." They said they would also back Native American tribes that have long overseen the land while its protection status changes again.
"The American people have made it clear over and over again that they want our national monuments protected, not sold out to drilling and mining companies. President Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum would be wise to remember that," said Aaron Weiss, director of the Center for Western Priorities.
Past decisions on the monuments ignited lawsuits, which local legal experts expected would be rekindled once the monuments were addressed again. Another change would likely spark "immediate litigation" again, John Ruple, a research professor of law at the University of Utah's S.J. Quinney College of Law and director of the Wallace Stegner Center Law and Policy, told KSL in 2024, shortly after Trump won the election to return to the Oval Office.
He expected Utah would likely turn from opposing presidential decisions under Biden to defending them under Trump, while conservation groups would do the opposite.
"I think it's safe to assume the state of Utah will continue to be engaged in costly and lengthy litigation," he added at the time.
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