With two swoops of his pen this month, President Donald Trump again reversed a decades-long push by tribes and conservationists to preserve two national monuments, shrinking them in size by about 90 percent.

In his July 13 proclamation, Trump wrote that the lands will be reviewed for their mineral development potential, and new mining claims could be staked in 60 days. National monument protection precludes any new oil, gas or mining claims.

It’s the second time Trump has attempted to use his powers under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to change the boundaries of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments. His first set of executive orders, which President Joe Biden reversed in 2021, were signed during his first term.

Some environmentalists say the move, if it withstands likely court challenges, could affect Nevada, where four national monuments safeguard land: Gold Butte, Basin and Range, Tule Springs Fossil Beds and Avi Kwa Ame.

The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment last week on whether Nevada monuments are on Trump’s radar for future action.

Thomas Delehanty, a lawyer with the nonprofit group Earthjustice, said in an interview that his organization intends to challenge the decision in court, as it did during the first Trump administration. That federal lawsuit stalled when Biden restored the monuments, but Earthjustice and others plan to re-up efforts to reverse the proclamation.

“This was a completely illegal abuse of power that President Trump just does not have,” Delehanty said.

Trump’s proclamation reduced the size of Bears Ears from 1.36 million acres to roughly 121,100 acres, while Grand Staircase-Escalante shrunk from 1.87 million acres to about 182,000 acres. After the reduction, they are each still bigger than Arches and Bryce Canyon national parks combined.

Utah’s federal delegation, as well as Gov. Spencer Cox, argues that federal law requires monument protections to be relegated “to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.” The state’s Republicans have long called for the transfer of federal lands to state control.

“Today’s proclamation shows that President Trump listens to Utahns and respects the limits Congress placed on the Antiquities Act,” said U.S. Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, in a July 13 statement. “For too long, presidents have weaponized monument designations to lock up millions of acres, close roads, restrict grazing, and cut rural communities off from lands their families have lived on and worked for generations.”

The Antiquities Act of 1906, signed into law by Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, grants presidents the power to establish national monuments. What it doesn’t allow, Delehanty argues, is for a president to reduce their size.

That reduction power is explicitly reserved for Congress, Delehanty said.

Utah Republicans say these rollbacks should stick this time, per federal law. The lands will remain under federal control and management.

“This has, unfortunately, become a back-and-forth issue between administrations,” said Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, in a statement. “Today’s announcement takes into consideration years of local concern over restricted access and misuse of the Antiquities Act while still protecting our state’s natural and cultural resources for future generations.”

Democratic members of Congress from Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona joined tribal leaders at a virtual news conference on July 14, condemning what they see as a thinly veiled land grab to allow the mining industry to run afoul of federal lands that are sacred to Native Americans.

But the political nature of mining in this area may not attract capital.

Rajive Ganguli, a mining engineering professor at the University of Utah, said in an interview that baseline studies from the Utah Geological Survey have shown little promise for mining exploration that would be worth an investment from prospectors. But that could change with a single drill hole that yields proof of a deposit, he added.

“A politically hot area will not attract a lot of investment,” Ganguli said. “If there is an exploration project and they find something, the urgency may shift. But even then, in the background, this has been a ping pong ball.”

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico, who serves as ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, called it a dark day in American history and for the spirit of tribal consultation.

“This action by this president is in such contrast and contradiction to the intent of the Antiquities Act and to what Teddy Roosevelt stood for,” Heinrich said. “It should not stand.”

Tribal representatives said Utah’s federal delegation did not consult with them ahead of working with Trump to undo the larger monument boundaries. They warned that even more mineral exploration — particularly for uranium — would not only desecrate Native American prayer sites and remains, but is likely to pollute sacred waterways.

Davina Smith-Idjesa, a tribal member from the Navajo Nation who helps lead an intertribal coalition that manages Bear Ears National Monument, called Trump’s decision heartbreaking.

“Our connection to Bear Ears did not begin with a presidential proclamation, and it will not end with one,” Smith-Idjesa said. “You can abolish a commission, you can redraw a boundary, but you cannot erase our prayers from this land. You cannot erase the footprints from this land of our ancestors. You cannot erase us.”

Federal land debates couldn’t be more ripe in Nevada, the state with the most federally owned land by percentage. Often, analysts connect a lack of developable privately owned land to a lack of affordable housing in Southern Nevada.

The most recent national monument designation in the Silver State came from President Joe Biden in March 2023. Avi Kwa Ame, or Spirit Mountain, encompasses more than 500,000 acres in Southern Nevada near Searchlight that several Native American tribes consider to be their people’s place of creation.

When it was designated, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo criticized the monument’s size, calling it a “federal confiscation” and a “historic mistake.”

Barbara Hartzell, executive director of Indigenous Voices of Nevada, said in a statement that Trump’s proclamations set a concerning precedent for the inclusion of tribes in political decisions that affect them and their ancestral homelands.

“It tells every Tribal Nation that even after showing up, even after collaborating, even after trusting the process, generations of stewardship can still be treated as though they matter less than politics,” Hartzell said. “That is how erasure happens. Not all at once, but decision by decision, until the people who have loved a place the longest are treated like strangers to it.”

Nevada’s sole Republican in Congress, Rep. Mark Amodei, introduced a bill in 2025 alongside a Utah congresswoman to strip the president’s authority to designate monuments under the Antiquities Act.

A spokesperson for the Nevada Mining Association declined to comment about the mineral development potential of Avi Kwa Ame or other national monuments in the state.

According to the Nevada Mining Association’s 2025 industry report, about 14,700 people work in the state’s mining industry, which generated $488.3 million of tax revenue in 2024.

It’s not just Avi Kwa Ame that has faced scrutiny from Republicans. In 2017, Trump’s Interior secretary recommended the reduction of Gold Butte National Monument 90 miles northeast of Nevada.

But national monuments remain widely popular with voters — a 2026 Colorado College poll found that 91 percent of Western voters supported keeping the boundaries of national monuments. Even 87 percent of those who self-identify with the Make America Great Again movement agreed that the designations should remain the same.

In a statement on July 14, U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said she remains concerned about Avi Kwa Ame — and stands ready to protect it against threats from Washington, D.C.

“President Trump’s decision to slash the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments by nearly three million acres is a slap in the face to the Tribal communities, outdoorsmen and conservationists who fought to preserve these treasured spaces for future generations,” Cortez Masto said.

Delehanty, of Earthjustice, said he believes the Trump administration is testing whether it can push the boundaries of federal law.

“If the administration got a ruling that allowed it to undertake these rollbacks, I think it would potentially take that as an invitation to go after other monuments elsewhere around the country,” he said. “It’s really troubling for not just Bear Ears and Grand Staircase, but the Antiquities Act as a whole.”

Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.