A federal judge has restarted a nearly decade-old lawsuit to challenge the Trump administration’s repeated actions to reduce the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments.
President Donald Trump slashed the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in a proclamation in July, opening once-protected lands in southern Utah to mining.
This new ruling now requires federal defendants to provide 48 hours of notice before any “ground-disturbing activities on the lands excised” by Trump’s proclamation. It also revives a 2017 lawsuit that was filed the first time Trump tried to shrink both monuments.
That action was reversed by former President Joe Biden, putting the suit on hold.
Several tribes consider those areas sacred and argue that the president’s actions were illegal and in violation of the Antiquities Act of 1906.
This story was produced by KJZZ in Phoenix and published by KNAU as part of the Arizona Public Media Exchange.