Utah official have filed a lawsuit against President Joe Biden alleging that his October 2021 restoration of the boundaries of the Bear Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments violates the Antiquities Act of 1906. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is shown during an April 2021 tour of ancient dwellings with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson and Rep. Blake Moore (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
SALT LAKE CITY – On behalf of the State of Utah, Attorney General Sean D. Reyes has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court against what officials here consider to be President Joe Biden’s unlawful restoration of the Bear Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
State elected officials joined in issuing the following statement: “These public lands and sacred sites are a stewardship that none of us take lightly.
“The archeological, paleontological, religious, recreational and geological values (of these monuments) need to be harmonized and protected.
“Rather than guarding those resources, President Biden’s unlawful designations places them all at greater risk.”
Signatories of that joint statement include Gov. Spencer Cox; Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson; State Auditor John Dougall; Treasurer Marlo Oaks; Senate President Stuart J. Adams; House Speaker Brad Wilson; U.S. Senators Mike Lee and Mitt Romney; U.S. Representatives Blake Moore, Chris Stewart, John Curtis and Burgess Owens; and Reyes.
Their joint statement continues: “The vast size of the expanded Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments draws unmanageable visitation levels to these lands without providing any of the tools necessary to adequately conserve and protect these resources.”
The lawsuit also alleges that the size of the two national monuments, covering the vast landscape of a combined 3.2 million acres, violates the Antiquities Act of 1906, which limits U.S. presidents to creating monuments that are “confined to the smallest area comparable with proper care and management of the object to be protected.”
“We now challenge this repeated, abusive federal overreach to ensure that our public lands are adequately protected and that smart stewardship remains with the people closest to the land,” the joint statement concludes.
Those two national monuments have been political football for decades.
The Grand Staircase-Escalante 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 ten year later.
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.
At the urging of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Biden decided to restore the Bear Ears monument to 1.36 million acres and the Grand Staircase-Escalante monument to 1.87 million acres in October of 2021.
The White House has defended the restoration of the monuments as “necessary to protect some of America’s most cherished lands and waters.”
Utah officials have argued that the enormous restored size of the two national monuments is nothing more than a federal land-grab.
Utah is home to nine national monuments, but only seven of them comply with the Antiquities Act of 1906. State officials argue that the two newest monument designations – the Bear Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments — are of a combined size that almost defies description.
They are so big, according to Utah officials, that you could fit all seven of the state’s other national monuments inside them, plus all five of Utah’s national parks and still have room left over for the entire state of Delaware and the cities of New York City, Seattle, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
While acknowledging that both national monuments contain cultural and paleontological resources that richly deserve protection, the lawsuit argued that the sheer size of the Bear Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments makes that impossible.
In their joint statement, Utah elected officials argue that a congressional solution would be a more effective path for the conservation and management of Utah lands.
“This would include collaboration from state and federal agencies, tribal nations, local governments, citizens, the Legislature and Utah’s congressional delegation,” they said.
“A congressional solution could better guard the area’s resources by ensuring tribal access to sacred sites; providing federal agencies with the management tools and funding they need; channeling visitation into appropriate protected locations; and giving local communities the funding and flexibility they need to thrive economically.”
In addition to the state of Utah, other plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Biden filed on Aug. 24 include Kane and Garfield counties.