On December 4, 2017, President Trump signed Proclamation 2017-26709, invoking his authority under the Antiquities Act to drastically reduce the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. The proclamation slashed the protected area from 1.35 million acres to approximately 228,775 acres, eliminating federal safeguards from roughly 1.1 million acres of public land. This represented one of the most substantial rollbacks of monument protections in American history, executed through the same statutory mechanism that had created the designation just 14 months earlier under the Obama administration.
The immediate beneficiaries of this reduction were extractive industries seeking access to mineral, timber, and energy resources. Utah-based mining and drilling interests gained potential pathways to develop lands previously shielded from commercial exploitation. Native American tribes—whose archaeological and cultural sites dot the removed acreage—lost federal protections for sacred lands, burial sites, and artifacts. Local conservation groups and outdoor recreation economies lost designated protections for ecosystems supporting wildlife and tourism.
This action established a pattern that would persist through the 2026 Trump administration. The Bears Ears reduction preceded multiple subsequent demolitions of environmental safeguards: the Minnesota wilderness opening to mining operations in 2026, the broader EPA regulatory rescissions under Lee Zeldin, and the invocation of Defense Production Act wartime authority to accelerate fossil fuel extraction. Each action removed federal oversight and protections from public lands and resources, collectively opening federal property to commercial interests while reducing environmental review processes.
Legal challenges to the 2017 proclamation proceeded through federal courts, with tribal nations and conservation groups arguing the reduction exceeded the president's Antiquities Act authority. Reversing this action would require either congressional legislation or a subsequent presidential proclamation expanding monument boundaries back to their original scope—a remedy that would restore both ecological protections and tribal access rights to ancestral lands.
Proclamation reducing Bears Ears National Monument boundaries
🌍 Environment · First Term (2017–2021) · 🤖 AI-categorized
On December 4, 2017, President Trump signed Proclamation 2017-26709, reducing Bears Ears National Monument in Utah from 1.35 million acres to approximately 228,775 acres. The proclamation eliminated protections on roughly 1.1 million acres of public land previously designated as monument. The reduction removed federal protections from lands containing archaeological sites, natural resources, and ecosystems, allowing potential future resource extraction and development on the removed acreage.