First, let’s talk about what a national monument is:  

The name can be confusing, but it doesn’t mean it has to be a building or a structure like you might think. 

A national monument can be federal land that the president or Congress can protect for historic or scientific purposes. This is different from a National Park which can only be established by Congress and is a spectacular scenic feature or natural phenomena preserved for inspirational, educational, and recreational value.

Presidential authority comes from the Antiquities Act of 1906 signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt. It was intended largely to protect historic Native American sites in the Southwest from looting and destruction. 

Two years later, President Roosevelt used the authority to protect more than 800,000 acres of the Grand Canyon from strip mining – a size many felt went beyond the Act’s intention, which stated that designations must be “limited to the smallest area compatible with the care and management of the objects to be protected.”

This set a precedent for large swathes of land to be protected by the president and kicked off a century-long legal dispute which saw its most recent action yesterday.

Since then, every president (except for three) has used this authority to create a total of 168 national monuments, many of which go on to become national parks including Four of Utah’s “Mighty Five.”

 

So what does designation as a National Monument mean?

The answer: It depends. Different requirements can be made for any given monument, though usually it does a couple things: 

1. It prevents new resource extraction activities: things like mining, oil and gas leasing, or timber harvesting, to name a few. 

2. It prohibits the sale or disposal of federal lands

3. It normally protects existing rights. Anything going on before designation as a monument – mining, grazing, private property access, use of roads and utilities – can likely continue.

 

So what about Utah’s National Monuments?

In all, Utah has nine national monuments. Grand Staircase was created in 1996 under President Clinton. Bears Ears was created in December 2016 in the final days of the Obama administration supported by five local Tribal Nations. 

In his first year, President Trump signed an executive order reducing Bears Ears by 83% and Grand Staircase by 47%. 

In 2021, President Biden restored both national monuments to their original boundaries.

Yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order once again reducing the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase by about 90%. Monuments have been reduced over a dozen times, though President Trump is the first to do so since 1963

 

What does President Trump’s action mean for these lands?

This isn’t about the federal government growing or shrinking the lands it owns – ownership does NOT change and they remain federal lands. 

It’s about how the federal government wants to designate and thereby use those lands. 

Yes, this change does open up lands for future commercial use, including resource extraction. It also focuses already limited funding and resources to protect and conserve the areas that matter most. The monuments aren’t abolished, but they are far smaller than before.

 

What are my thoughts?

In the last decade, this is now the fourth time in four different administrations that executive action has flip-flopped and dramatically altered management of lands in Utah. Repeated uncertainty is not fair to Tribal Nations, local communities, commercial enterprises, and Utahns as a whole. This partisan, presidential tug of war needs to stop. 

We need to be using the right laws for the right reasons. The Antiquities Act should be used to protect historic and scientific places. National parks should be created to protect scenic places. Candidly, I see merit in scaling back the monument designations that were roughly the size of Delaware, but the discussion shouldn’t stop there.

If we are concerned with development on this land, why hasn’t Congress considered creating a national park? Let’s explore this option. Next month, I’ll be visiting these monuments myself to better understand what’s going on and learn directly from local leaders.

For me, it’s not just a question of IF we should protect certain lands, but HOW we do so in responsible and enduring ways.