Rumors Swirl About National Monuments

Rumors that six national monuments may soon be rolled back are raising concerns about public lands protections.

Across the Colorado Plateau, the days are getting warmer. As you dust off your hiking poles and get ready to enjoy some time in the desert, we’d like to fill you in on some alarming developments threatening our national public lands.

The six national monuments to slash

The Washington Post reported on April 24, 2025 that six national monuments may be on the chopping block to “encourage energy development.” These include Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments in Utah, and Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni national monument in Arizona.

According to the Washington Post, “Trump officials are analyzing whether to remove federal protections for national monuments spanning millions of acres in the West.” Eliminating protections that communities and tribal nations have spent decades working to secure would be both unpopular and unlawful.

“They opened up Grand Staircase under the previous [Trump] administration and the coal market did not rush in, the oil and gas market did not rush in, nobody rushed in. There are plenty of minerals elsewhere. This is about an ideological battle,” said Tracy Stone Manning, former U.S. Bureau of Land Management Director under President Biden.

When will the Trump administration try to undercut national monuments? Secretary Burgum told an interviewer on April 25, 2025, “We’ll go through a thorough review and whatever that timeline lays out, but this is not … a top priority of the administration in terms of all the things we’ve got to face.”  While we don’t know exactly when reductions could happen, another document revealed in April 2025 indicates that messing with national monuments is, in fact, a priority.

Leaked strategic plan

On April 22, 2025, the news outlet Public Domain obtained a U.S. Department of the Interior strategic plan draft framework. The internal document’s stated goal is to “restore American prosperity.”

Language in the plan echoes recent remarks by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum that characterize our public lands as a “balance sheet” containing “assets” of oil and gas, coal, uranium, and other commodities.

There’s a lot to chew on in the draft plan, much of it unpopular. This includes removing protections for endangered species, weakening bedrock environmental laws, giving away public lands for housing development, and surrendering “heritage lands and sites to the states.” Though “heritage lands” are not defined.

Confirming the Washington Post’s reporting, the plan also prioritizes ongoing efforts to “assess and right-size monuments,” reinforcing the threats to Grand Staircase-Escalante, Bears Ears, and Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni national monuments.

The plan is rife with contradictions. It calls for increasing revenues from mining, timber cutting, and grazing while also managing “land, water and public sites through protection and conservation,” ensuring that “ecosystems are healthy, balanced and thrive,” and promoting “Native community traditional use” of public lands.

The document also lays out a timeline. It calls for public, congressional, and tribal feedback mid-May through mid-July 2025, then additional review and publication by October 1, 2025.

Short-circuiting environmental safeguards for mining and fossil fuel development

The Interior Department isn’t waiting until fall to make sweeping changes to how oil and gas drilling and mining for uranium, coal, and other commodities is permitted on our national public lands. Citing a dubious “energy emergency,” on April 23, 2025, the Interior Department issued “emergency permitting procedures” that attempt to shortcut environmental analysis and public review, even for detailed environmental impact statements. These in-depth environmental reviews can take one, two, or four years or more to analyze environmental consequences including climate change impacts. The new time limit? Just 14 or 28 days, depending on the complexity of the proposed mining or drilling project.

The process required to permit drilling and mining on national public lands must follow environmental rules, regulations, and laws like the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, and the Endangered Species Act. How will they squeeze all this compliance (not to mention opportunities for tribes, experts, and the public to weigh in) into a 14 or 28-day period? It’s unclear, and the scheme will likely end up in court.

Grand Staircase-Escalante targeted for coal mining?

On April 8, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order titled, “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry and Amending Executive Order 14241.”

A fact sheet released on the order makes clear that Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument could be targeted. It explains that “The Executive Order … Directs relevant agencies to identify coal resources on Federal lands, lift barriers to coal mining, and prioritize coal leasing on those lands.”

The order calls for prioritizing coal mining as the primary use for public lands where there are coal deposits and for speeding up environmental reviews. It also calls for a report to be prepared by June 7, 2025 that will likely serve as a blueprint for fast-tracking coal mining on national public lands.

Reducing or eliminating Grand Staircase-Escalante could be spun as “lift[ing] barriers to coal mining” of the Kaiparowits coal field. Addressing the relative lack of a viable market for coal in America, the order proposes that “public actors” (i.e. the government) could mine the coal. Nationalizing the coal industry? That would be a big deal.

With so much happening on the national stage, it can be easy to miss the many active and emerging threats to our public lands and national monuments. Our team remains vigilant, prepared, and resolute in our commitment to defend the Colorado Plateau. We can’t do it without you, and we’re grateful for your support.