President Trump signed proclamations in the Oval Office on Monday, July 13, cutting the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in southern Utah by about 90 percent each, leaving less than 303,000 acres combined [1]. Utah Governor Spencer Cox stood beside him. Both monuments were created by Trump's Democratic predecessors — Grand Staircase-Escalante by Bill Clinton in 1996, Bears Ears by Barack Obama in 2016, both under the Antiquities Act [1].

The cut goes deeper than Trump's first term. In his first term he left Grand Staircase-Escalante at roughly 1 million acres and Bears Ears at 213,000 acres; this time both drop far lower [1]. Bears Ears was the first national monument ever created at the request of tribal nations, who consider the land sacred and jointly manage it with federal agencies under a formal agreement [1].

Cox framed the reduction as a question of method, not protection: "The question has never been whether to protect Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, but how to protect them best" [1]. Trump asserted Monday that under the existing designations people can not hunt, fish or "virtually not even walk" on the monuments [1]. Utah officials have long argued the state should control its own lands, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said last year that federal officials would review and redraw monument boundaries to expand energy and mineral access [1].

That access is the point Trump's frame omits. Grand Staircase-Escalante holds large coal reserves; the Bears Ears area holds uranium — deposits state officials want opened for development [1]. A monument designation bans drilling, mining and new construction not only on artifacts but across the surrounding landscape, so shrinking the boundary is what makes those deposits reachable [1]. Trump described land returned to public use; what the smaller boundary returns to industry is the coal and uranium the designation had locked away.

Davina Smith-Idjesa, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and co-chair of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, said tribal leaders had braced for a reduction since Trump's re-election but called the outcome "heartbreaking," accusing federal officials of sidestepping their legal duty to consult affected tribes [1]. "From a Navajo perspective, Bears Ears is not simply a piece of federal public land," she said, adding that Trump was "turning the Antiquities Act on its head" [1]. The Bears Ears area is home to hundreds of thousands of objects of cultural and scientific significance [1].

Whether the cut holds is unsettled. Trump's first-term reductions drew immediate lawsuits, and the new boundaries face the same fight over whether the president can shrink monuments a predecessor enlarged [1]. The proclamation is signed, but the mining leases, the required tribal consultation, and the court rulings that decide whether the coal and uranium ever reach the market are still to come.

-- SAMUEL CRANE, Washington