Trump to shrink 2 Utah national monuments by 90%

Key Points:

• President Donald Trump signed an executive order reducing the size of Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments by approximately 90%, shrinking their combined area from 3 million acres to 300,000 acres.
• The monuments were originally established by Presidents Bill Clinton (1996) and Barack Obama (2016), and the reduction aims to return land to the public, a move supported by Utah Governor Spencer Cox.
• Local Native American groups have strongly opposed the order, emphasizing that Bears Ears holds significant cultural, historical, and spiritual importance to the Navajo Nation and other tribes.
• The original monument designations protected large deposits of coal and uranium, and the reduction opens these areas to potential mining, drilling, and other energy development activities.
• The Trump administration, along with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, is promoting expanded energy production on federal lands, including efforts to increase mining and oil drilling in Alaska.