Trump signs order reducing Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments by roughly 90 percent

President Trump signed an executive order Monday shrinking the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah to a combined area of less than 303,000 acres — a reduction of roughly 90 percent from the more than 3.2 million acres protected under the Biden-era boundaries. The two monuments, an area the Associated Press described as nearly the size of Connecticut, were originally established by President Bill Clinton in 1996 and President Barack Obama in 2016, respectively.

Trump framed the action as returning land to the people. "They took the land from the people quite honestly," Trump said at the signing ceremony, according to Fox News. "We're giving it back." Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who attended the signing, said the original monument boundaries were far larger than the Antiquities Act intended, arguing the law calls for "the smallest area possible to protect the antiquities."

Opponents of the reductions raised concerns about both cultural and environmental impacts. Davina Smith-Idjesa, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and co-chair of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, said the sites contain histories, ceremonies, traditional foods, medicines, and ancestors' footprints. "Our connection to this place cannot be erased by the stroke of a pen," she said, as quoted by the AP. The Bears Ears monument is jointly managed under an agreement between tribal nations and federal agencies.