Trump Shrinks 2 National Monuments

President Trump on Monday reduced the size of two national monuments in Utah, undoing protections established by former presidents on public lands that are sacred among many Native Americans. Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in southern Utah have ancient cliff dwellings, petroglyphs, and scenic canyons, as well as coal and uranium deposits that state officials want made available for development. Trump, a Republican, issued proclamations under the Antiquities Act to reduce their size, the AP reports. He took similar actions during his first term, but those were reversed after Joe Biden, a Democrat, became president.

Trump and other Republicans have been drastically reshaping the management of vast taxpayer-owned lands concentrated in Western states. Administration officials and congressional Republicans have sought to expand drilling, mining, and logging on public lands while removing protections for imperiled species and rolling back rules for conservation. The national monuments were created by two Democratic presidents: Bill Clinton established Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996, and Barack Obama established Bears Ears National Monument in 2016 under the Antiquities Act. Trump then cut back Bears Ears by about 85% and Grand Staircase-Escalante by nearly half before Biden reversed him, per the Hill. "We're actually giving more than we did the first time back to the people of Utah," Trump said in an Oval Office signing.

The 1906 law gives presidents the powers to protect sites considered historic, archaeologically significant or culturally important, and the Supreme Court has affirmed the president's authority to do so. But there's debate about whether Trump has the authority to change the boundaries of existing monuments. Davina Smith-Idjesa, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and co-chair of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, said tribal leaders had braced for a reduction since Trump was elected to a second term. She said Monday it was "heartbreaking" and accused federal officials of sidestepping their legal responsibility to consult with tribal nations that would be impacted. "From a Navajo perspective, Bears Ears is not simply a piece of federal public land," Smith-Idjesa said. "This is a living cultural site that holds our histories, our ceremonies, our traditional foods and medicines and our ancestors' footprints."