President Donald Trump signs executive orders on Monday that reduce the size of two national monuments in Utah: Bears Ears and Grand Staircase–Escalante. The moves revisit actions from his first term, which had been reversed by later administrations, according to multiple outlets. In comments during the signing ceremony at the White House, Trump says the reductions return more land to the people of Utah, describing the change as exceeding what was done in his earlier attempt.
The reporting describes the change as a shift from the monument boundaries set by predecessors and frames it as a direct challenge to those prior presidential proclamations. Multiple summaries note that the monument sizes have “ping-ponged” between administrations, indicating that the boundaries have changed repeatedly over time depending on which party holds the presidency.
While details of the final acreage and management implications are not fully laid out in the provided excerpts, the consensus across sources is that Trump’s executive orders formally shrink both monuments and restart a new round of boundary-setting in Utah’s protected areas.
