Administration eyes six national monuments for rollback; DOJ claims presidents can abolish them (April 24, 2025 )
April 24, 2025 — The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration was considering rolling back protections at six national monuments across the American West — Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni–Ancestral Footprints near the Grand Canyon, Ironwood Forest in Arizona, Chuckwalla in California, and Organ Mountains–Desert Peaks in New Mexico — comprising more than 5 million acres of public land. The goal was to open portions of the monuments to oil, gas, mining, and mineral extraction. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum had quietly ordered a review of all "withdrawn public lands" in February, with agencies given just 15 days to produce action plans.
The potential rollback followed a 50-page Department of Justice legal opinion issued on May 27, 2025 claiming that presidents possess the authority to abolish national monuments entirely — a position that contradicts longstanding legal interpretation of the Antiquities Act of 1906, which authorizes designation but says nothing about abolition. Legal experts called the opinion a dangerous and likely unconstitutional stretch. The administration's priority targets were tribally nominated monuments: Bears Ears was the first monument created at the explicit request of five Native American nations, including the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, and Pueblo of Zuni, who consider the landscape sacred.
A January 2025 poll found that 71 percent of Utah voters support Bears Ears National Monument and 74 percent support Grand Staircase-Escalante. Environmental and tribal organizations vowed immediate legal challenges to any boundary reductions, noting that Trump's first-term shrinkage of Bears Ears by 85 percent — later reversed by Biden — had already been the subject of active litigation.
| https://earthjustice.org/press/2025/report-trump-administration-considers-attacking-six-national-monuments-for-energy-development |