Trump executive order drastically reduces scale of two controversial national monuments 60%
By Charlie Schill79%
7/14/2026, 5:38:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 30 faulty reasoning types, including Ambiguity (Equivocation), Negativity Bias, and Self-Serving Bias, with Appeal to Emotion as the most egregious example at 21.9% saturation with 150 hits. Analysis detected 1,593 faulty-reasoning hits from 684 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 56.9% and a BS Rank of 60% (6,361 of 15,855 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 59.90% of the article peer group.
SALT LAKE CITY – Once again, President Donald Trump has used his executive authority to trim the size of the Bear Ears and Grand-Staircase Escalante national monuments here in Utah and most Republican government officials are applauding that action.
“We deeply value these natural, cultural and scientific treasures,” said Gov.
Spencer Cox, reacting the news of Trump's executive order impacting the boundaries of those national monuments.
“The question has never been whether to protect them,” he added, “but how to protect them best.
The historic landmarks and other nationally significant resources (within those national monuments) remain under federal protection, while allowing agencies to direct limited resources toward caring for those specific sites rather than millions of surrounding acres.”
“Today's proclamation moves both monuments closer to the Antiquities Act's requirement,” according to Attorney General Derek Brown, “specifically that designations must cover only the ‘... smallest area compatible with proper care and management.’
“For ranchers, families and rural communities who depend on these lands, the revised boundaries now sit closer to what Congress originally authorized.”
The size of these national monuments within Utah have been going up and down like a balloon for years.
The Grand Staircase National Monument was created in 1996 by an executive order by former President Bill Clinton.
Former President Barak Obama set aside the Bear Ears National Monument in 2016.
Both areas are considered to be sacred to Native American tribes, including the Navajo, Hopi, Ute and Pueblo tribes.
In 2017, former President Donald Trump responded to complaints from Utah officials by downsizing the Bears Ears monument by 85 percent and reducing the area of the Grand Staircase-Escalante monument by half.
In October of 2021, former President Joe Biden restored the Bear Ears monument to 1.36 million acres and the Grand Staircase-Escalante monument to 1.87 million acres.
A state press release issued July 13 emphasized that the two monuments encompassed approximately 3.2 million acres, an larger than all of Utah’s other seven national monuments and five national parks combined, with room to spare for the state of Delaware, New York City, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
Under the executive order issued by Trump, the Bear Ears National Monument is now reduced to 121,000 acres while the Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument is reduced to 182,000 acres, a total of less than a tenth of their previous combined acreage.
While House Speaker Mike Schultz (R-Hooper) and Senate Presidents Stuart Adams (R-Layton) have joined the Republican chorus in applauding the president’s action, Utah Democrats are less than pleased.
“These landmarks are among the greatest ecological, geological, historical and cultural treasures in our state and nation,” the Utah Democratic Party argued in a social media post following the announcement of Trump’s executive order.
“This decision not only risks losing irreplaceable natural landscapes, but dishonors the history and heritage of our land and Tribal Nations.”
Utah Democrats have promised to explore every legal pathway to challenge Trump’s action in court.
National monument designations provide special protection for culturally and scientifically significant objects on land already managed by the federal government for the benefit of all Americans.
The Antiquities Act, originally passed in 1906, authorizes the President to declare historic landmarks and other objects of historic or scientific interest as national monuments and designate them “to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”
The scale of previous designations of Bears Ears and Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monuments created significant management challenges for Utah, which inadvertently harmed the cultural and scientific resources.
“The Antiquities Act was never meant to be a tool for locking up millions of acres with the stroke of a pen,” Brown insists.
“Today’s action takes a major step in the right direction of appropriately sized monuments allowing responsible stewardship that works with our communities, not against them.
“Utah has fought hard to enforce Antiquities Act limits on monument size, and we will continue fighting to ensure the law is applied faithfully — and that Utahns have lasting certainty about the lands they call home,” he added.
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