Environmental groups and Tribes are asking a federal court to revive lawsuits over the boundaries of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments after President Donald Trump sharply reduced both Utah monuments for a second time.
The groups filed motions in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia asking the court to reopen litigation over Trump’s 2017 monument reductions. They also want to update the lawsuits to challenge his latest boundary reductions, announced on July 13.
The proclamations Trump signed in July reduced Bears Ears from about 1.36 million acres to about 121,096 acres, and Grand Staircase-Escalante from roughly 1.87 million acres to about 181,541 acres, excluding more than 1.6 million acres.
Trump reduced Bears Ears by about 1.15 million acres and removed nearly 900,000 acres from Grand Staircase-Escalante in 2017. The lawsuits were stayed after President Joe Biden restored the boundaries in 2021.
Groups seek to reopen suits
The Sept. 2 motions argue the new proclamations have changed the circumstances that justified pausing the original lawsuits.
The groups want to amend their complaints so the court can consider the 2017 and 2026 reductions together. They contend doing so would avoid separate lawsuits and duplicative motions because both challenges involve many of the same facts and legal arguments, according to court documents,
The litigation also includes questions left unresolved from the first reductions, including activities and mining claims established on lands removed from monument protection between 2017 and the 2021 restorations. Plaintiffs say the latest reductions again expose excluded lands to potential development. The groups assert that Kimmerle Mining filed seven mining claims one day after Trump signed the proclamation.
“With the filing of these lawsuits, we intend to make sure Trump doesn’t have the final word over the fate of these treasured landscapes,” said Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance Legal Director Steve Bloch.
The lawsuits argue the Antiquities Act gives presidents authority to establish national monuments and reserve federal land for their protection, but not to abolish or substantially reduce monuments established by previous presidents.
Christy Goldfuss, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said the central legal question is whether presidential authority to establish monuments also includes the power to dismantle them.
“Presidents have the power to create national monuments to protect what belongs to all of us, but Congress never gave them the power to tear those monuments down,” Goldfuss said.
The Trump administration argues the Antiquities Act gives presidents authority to adjust monument boundaries to ensure they cover the “smallest area compatible” with protecting designated resources.
White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers did not directly address the lawsuit’s allegations in a statement to Utah News Dispatch, instead pointing to monument expansions under Presidents Barack Obama and Biden.
“The Obama and Biden administrations abused the Antiquities Act to lock up millions of acres of Utah’s public lands,” Rogers said. She added that Trump “rightsized the Bears Ears National Monument to allow for common sense land use in these areas.”
Earthjustice represents The Wilderness Society, National Parks Conservation Association, Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Trust, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, Western Watersheds Project, WildEarth Guardians and Center for Biological Diversity. NRDC and Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance are co-plaintiffs represented by their own counsel. Tribes and other monument supporters also filed motions seeking to renew their litigation. — Charles Wallace, WLJ contributing editor
