# Bears Ears National Monument The southeastern Utah monument that has been designated, cut, restored, and cut again by four consecutive presidents — the single most contested application of the [[Antiquities Act]] in the statute's 120-year history, and the case through which the courts are now deciding whether the Act has any judicially enforceable limit at all. ## The boundary record | Date | President | Instrument | Acreage | |---|---|---|---| | Dec 28, 2016 | [[Barack Obama]] | Proclamation 9558 | ~1,351,849 | | Dec 4, 2017 | [[Donald Trump]] | Proclamation 9681 | ~228,794 (−85%) | | Oct 8, 2021 | [[Joe Biden]] | Proclamation 10285 | ~1,360,000 | | Jul 13, 2026 | [[Donald Trump]] | Proclamation 11043 | ~121,096 (−91%) | The 2026 proclamation retains two units — Shash Jáa (~106,816 acres across five non-contiguous parcels) and Indian Creek (~14,279 acres) — and removes roughly 1.24 million acres. It is the largest monument reduction ever executed. ## What makes it different Bears Ears was the first national monument proposed and campaigned for by a **coalition of sovereign tribal nations**. The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition — the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe, and Pueblo of Zuni — developed the original proposal and secured, in the 2016 proclamation, a formal management commission giving the five nations a standing role in administering the monument. That structure is why the reduction fights have been litigated by tribes rather than only by conservation groups, and why the 2017 suit was captioned *Hopi Tribe v. Trump*. The landscape holds an extraordinarily dense archaeological record — cliff dwellings, granaries, kivas, and rock art spanning thousands of years — which is precisely the category of resource the 1906 Act was written to protect. The 2026 proclamation's rationale that petroglyphs are "common throughout the American West" and therefore not qualifying objects is, for that reason, the most legally aggressive claim in the document. ## The stakes underneath The removed acreage overlays uranium and vanadium deposits — the White Mesa Mill, the last operating conventional uranium mill in the United States, sits nearby — plus copper and silver. Proclamation 11043 explicitly invokes **critical minerals and national security**, which is the first time a monument reduction has been justified in those terms. Mining claims were filed in San Juan County the day after the proclamation, before the restoration date on which mineral entry becomes lawful; [[Earthjustice]] has asked [[Bureau of Land Management]] to reject them as premature. Mineral entry on the excluded lands opens September 11, 2026. ## Litigation The 2017 reduction was challenged in *Hopi Tribe v. Trump* and companion suits filed in D.D.C. within days; the merits question — **whether a president may shrink a monument at all** — was never reached, because Biden's 2021 restoration mooted the cases before decision. The reverse challenge, *Garfield County v. Biden*, attacked the restoration and was dismissed in 2023 on sovereign-immunity grounds. On **June 23, 2026** the Tenth Circuit reversed that dismissal 2–1, holding that Antiquities Act proclamations *are* subject to ultra vires review and that the statute's "smallest area compatible" clause imposes a judicially enforceable limit. Three weeks later Trump issued Proclamation 11043. The doctrine the state of Utah won in order to attack a Democratic designation is now the doctrine tribes and conservation groups will use to attack a Republican reduction. See [[Antiquities Act]] and [[Antiquities Act Timeline]]. --- *See also: [[Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument]] — cut by the same two proclamation waves.* - [[Energy Fuels]] — operator of the White Mesa Mill, one mile outside the boundary; subject of an August 2026 congressional insider-trading inquiry ## See also - [[Federal Land Management Crosswalk]] — where the monument lever sits among the five, and why a 91% reduction shows up nowhere in the federal acreage table - [[Antiquities Act]] - [[Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument]]