Trump again shrinks Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments

This is public lands news with no direct link to home energy upgrades, so here's what happened in plain terms.

President Trump signed executive orders shrinking Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in southern Utah from over 3 million acres combined down to 302,600 acres. This goes further than his first-term cuts in 2017, which had already reduced the monuments before President Biden restored their original boundaries. The orders take effect in 60 days and are meant to open the land to mining, drilling, and grazing. Trump also disbanded an inter-tribal working group that had co-managed Bears Ears with the federal government, a first-of-its-kind arrangement. Tribal officials say they were not consulted.

Legal experts note the Antiquities Act, the 1906 law presidents use to create monuments, gives Congress, not the president, the power to undo them. A lawsuit from Utah challenging the earlier restoration of the monuments is already working through the courts, and the new orders may be an attempt to make that case moot. Environmental groups and tribal coalitions, including Earthjustice, say they plan to sue again, as they did after the 2017 cuts. Democratic lawmakers and public lands advocates criticized the move, arguing it favors extraction industries over conservation and tribal interests, and polling has shown broad public support for keeping the monuments intact.