For over a century, the 1906 Antiquities Act has bestowed the president with extraordinary power over public lands. With one swift stroke of a pen, a president can create a national monument on federal land to protect historic landmarks or structures.
Since the bill passed, 18 presidents have created 168 national monuments, but in the last decade, just two of them have been at the center of major political debate, and they are back in the news yet again. On Monday, President Trump signed an executive order to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monuments.
What Are These Monuments?
Located in southern Utah, close to Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks, Grand Staircase is a 1.9-million–acre parcel of land that received its national monument status in 1996.
It is popular with many outdoor enthusiasts, including hikers, campers, and off-roaders. It’s well-known for its spectacular, multicolored rock formations. According to a report from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), 936,000 people visited the national monument in 2024, up from 890,000 in 2023.
The call to make Bears Ears, which is also located in southern Utah, a national monument came from multiple local Native American tribes. The Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and Ute Indian Tribe all pushed for the designation. The 1.36-million–acre land area is home to over 100,000 Indigenous archaeological and cultural sites, many of which are considered sacred to these groups.
President Obama declared it a national monument in 2016, and these tribes, which together compose the Bears Ears Commission, were given an important role in land management. The monument received around 416,000 visitors in 2024 and 454,000 in 2023, according to BLM data.
What Trump Did
While the Antiquities Act of 1906 does give the president power to establish national monuments, whether the law allows them to diminish or revoke national monuments is unclear. Many legal scholars and lawsuits have debated this question for decades.
Regardless, in a press conference on July 13, President Trump announced that he was invoking the law in order to shrink both national monuments. He reduced Grand Staircase to 181,541 acres and Bears Ears to 121,096 acres, cutting both of them by approximately 90%.
The documents publishing these actions cited several reasons to justify reducing the size of the national monuments. The Trump Administration maintained that large swathes of these lands do not contain historic landmarks or objects of historic or scientific interest, and thus do not meet the standard for protection under the Antiquities Act.
The documents also maintained that even when historic landmarks do exist on these lands, there are plenty of existing federal laws — including the Archaeological Resources Protection Act and National Historic Preservation Act — to protect them, making national monument status unnecessary.
In addition to cutting the size of these monuments, Trump’s proclamations included several other action points. He disbanded the Bears Ears Commission, the inter-tribal group involved in land management. Instead, “the Secretaries shall continue to consult with Tribal Nations in accordance with other applicable authorities,” the document read.
The Trump Administration has prioritized resource extraction from public lands in the past, and this ethos also applies to both national monuments. Trump declared that within 60 days, the land withdrawn from both national monuments will be open for sale or lease for mining.
“The Bears Ears region contains several resources that are vital to energy and resource independence and, in turn, critical to national security,” the proclamation said. “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.”
The Response
Many environmental and public lands groups issued statements criticizing Trump’s actions.
In a press release, the Center for Western Priorities said that the move is “illegal and defies public support.” The public land advocacy group cited polls from the Grand Canyon Trust and Colorado College that showed over 70% of Utah voters are in favor of keeping the monuments at their current size.
The Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation nonprofit, slammed the move. “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,” Executive Director Aaron Weiss said in a press release.
The Context
The controversy over Grand Staircase dates back to its beginning, when then-President Clinton created the national monument in 1996. The move killed a possible coal development project in the area, angering some locals.
In 2017, President Trump sparked major controversy when he shrank Grand Staircase by nearly 50%, reducing its size to just 1 million acres. Then in 2021, Biden restored Grand Staircase to its former size, a decision that courts upheld in a 2023 ruling.
In 2026, Congress attempted to undo the resource management plan (RMP) of Grand Staircase established in the Biden era through the Congressional Review Act (CRA). Essentially, lawmakers said that the RMP fell under the purview of Congressional review. Republican lawmakers from Utah, including Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Celeste Maloy, were attempting to pass a resolution disapproving of the Biden-era RMP and replacing it with the Trump-era RMP.
Lawmakers in favor of this plan are concerned about federal overreach. This procedural tactic appears not to have produced results.
When President Obama declared Bears Ears a monument in 2016, it resulted in the withdrawal of Lockhart Basin from potential future energy leasing, which angered industry groups. In 2017, not long after its creation, President Trump reduced the size of Bears Ears by 83% to a size of just 230,000 acres. The monument’s status flip-flopped again when Biden came into office. In 2021, the President restored the national monument to its former size.
Thus, the Trump executive order is the latest salvo in the ongoing battle over these national monuments.
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