Nearly 3 million acres of protected Utah wilderness lost their federal shield with two strokes of a pen inside the Oval Office. President Donald Trump signed a pair of executive proclamations on 13 July 2026, cutting Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments to less than 10 per cent of their current size.
The signing, live-streamed by the White House, was flanked by Utah's entire Republican congressional delegation, Governor Spencer Cox and House Speaker Mike Schultz. Tribal nations and conservation groups have already vowed to sue.
