The state of Utah has gone to court in a bid to reverse the boundaries of Bears Ears (above) and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments/BLM, Bob Wick

The state of Utah and two of its counties went to federal court on Wednesday in a bid to overturn the latest boundary change to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, arguing that President Biden overreached the authority given him under The Antiquities Act.

The legal bid is just the latest turn to shift the boundaries of the two monuments. Former President Trump flew to Salt Lake City in December 2017 to issue presidential proclamations that sheered nearly 2 million acres from the two monuments. 

Bears Ears National Monument was established by President Obama in 2016 under The Antiquities Act following years of advocacy by numerous tribes with cultural ties to the land. The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition advocated successfully to protect the cultural, historic, and natural values of the monument. The monument is home to multiple culturally significant and archaeological sites dating as far back as 11,000 BCE. The land is still used today by tribal members, who continually visit it to conduct religious ceremonies and other traditional practices.

The 1.9-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, designated by President Clinton in 1996, is extremely rich in paleontological resources, with nearly 150 scientists having said the monument “hosts one of the highest concentrations of dinosaur fossils in the world,” and that only 6 percent has been surveyed, and that “the potential for future discovery is tremendous.”

But Trump maintained that Presidents Clinton and Obama overreached their authority under The Antiquities Act by creating national monuments larger than needed to protect historic, cultural, archaeological, and paleontological resources.

Trump cut Grand Staircase by a bit more than 1 million acres and broke it into three monuments known as Grand Staircase, Escalante Canyons, and Kaiparowits. Bears Ears shrank to a bit more than 201,000 acres in the Indian Creek and Shash Jáa units from its original size of 1.3 million acres.

Biden last fall reversed Trump's actions in a move both to keep a promise to restore the boundaries and also to uphold "the longstanding principle that America’s national parks, monuments, and other protected areas are to be protected for all time and for all people," the White House said at the time.

But in their lawsuit, Utah authorities claimed Biden went too far by restoring the original monument boundaries, arguing that the boundaries he restored were "not confined to qualifying historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, or other objects of historic or scientific interest."

"A reservation made under the Act must be confined to 'historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest' and a reservation of land must be limited to those 'parcels of land' that are 'confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected',” read a section of the 84-page filing.

The executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance disparaged the lawsuit, saying that "[O]nce again, Utah’s political leaders are running roughshod over those who live closest to Utah’s national monuments — especially the tribes that have lived here since time immemorial."

"This lawsuit further ignores the local elected officials in Grand and San Juan counties, where Bears Ears is located, and community leaders in the towns closest to the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, who have registered their support for President Biden’s lawful restoration of the original monument boundaries," added Scott Groene. “From Governor Cox on down, the continued anti-environment agenda of Utah politicians makes the Utah political delegation the most hostile to America’s public lands, of any state.  At a time when climate change is creating drought and extreme weather events in Utah, Utah’s politicians are exacerbating the harm by trying to upend the very public land protections that play a critical role in mitigating the effects of climate change. Utah residents deserve better.”

When the Antiquities Act was signed into law in 1906, it gave presidents power to create national monuments "which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected..."

You can go back, at least, to 1996, when Clinton designated Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, to find arguments over what constitutes the "smallest area compatible."

Indian Creek, Bears Ears National Monument/BLM, Bob Wick

That designation, of course, was met with an uproar from Utah's politicians and congressional delegation, an uproar that wasn't quelled until Trump in 2017 redrew the lines for Grand Staircase and Bears Ears. At the time, Trump maintained that Clinton and Obama "severely abused the purpose, spirit, and intent of a century-old law known as The Antiquities Act."