Trump again cuts Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante by about 90 percent
President Trump signed orders on July 13 sharply reducing two Utah national monuments, cutting Bears Ears to about 121,000 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante to about 182,000 acres — a combined reduction of roughly 3 million acres . He signed the action in the Oval Office alongside Utah’s six-member congressional delegation, Governor Spencer Cox and state House Speaker Mike Schultz.
The move closely mirrors the boundaries Trump set during his first term in 2017, which President Biden restored in 2021, and continues a back-and-forth in which each administration has redrawn the monuments by proclamation under the Antiquities Act. Utah officials including Senator Mike Lee have long sought smaller monuments to allow more local control, grazing and recreation; conservation groups and tribes that pushed for the designations object that the cuts strip protection from public land and Indigenous cultural sites.
Because the reductions rest on presidential authority rather than legislation, they are likely to face legal challenges and could again be reversed by a future administration — leaving the land’s long-term status unsettled.