The Fallen Roof Ruins are pictured at Cedar Mesa in Bears Ears National Monument. (Photo by Sumiko Scott/Getty Images)
Testifying before a U.S. Senate committee on Thursday, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of the Interior appeared to share the concerns Utah politicians have with how the federal government manages public land, including the designation of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
Former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum was tapped by Trump to lead the department in November. If approved, he’ll take the helm of an office that employs some 70,000 people and oversees the U.S. bureaus of Indian Affairs, Land Management, and Reclamation, as well as the National Park Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“Doug Burgum as the pick for Interior was probably the single best decision that Donald Trump has made, in his previous administration or this current one,” said Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Thursday. “I talk to him regularly, and I think he’s going to be a great help when it comes to the public lands issues, permitting reform, the things that we need to happen to continue to protect the environment, to save our most beautiful landscapes, but also to unleash the ingenuity that exists in America.”
The department plays a key role in a number of hot button issues involving Utah, like management of the Colorado River, energy production, permitting, infrastructure projects and public land decisions, which includes the future of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
On the latter, it appears Utah’s politicians have an ally in Burgum. Though he didn’t say it explicitly, he hinted at the incoming administration’s willingness to shrink the boundaries of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante.
The monuments, which cover a combined 3.2 million acres in southern Utah, were cut down by Trump in 2017, then reestablished by President Joe Biden in 2021.
Utah is challenging Biden’s decision in federal appeals court, taking issue with the Antiquities Act, which was passed in 1906 and allows presidents to establish national monuments. It was used to designate what eventually became some of the country’s most iconic landscapes, like Grand Canyon and Olympic national parks. Twelve of Utah’s monuments and national parks were created using the Antiquities Act, including Zion, Arches, Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef.
Big day for Bears Ears: Appeals court hears arguments in case challenging Utah national monuments
The state argues the act directs the president to create the smallest possible boundary, while still protecting cultural artifacts — Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante are too big, according to the state’s interpretation.
Burgum seemed to agree with that argument on Thursday when responding to a question from Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who asked if the former governor was willing to “try to fix that current mess.”
The Antiquities Act “states very clearly that the smallest possible area to protect those objects, be protected. Its original intention really was to protect antiquities, areas like, I would say, Indiana Jones-type archeological protections,” Burgum said. “I would look forward to working with you, and particularly on the area of local consultation, because when the federal government overreaches into a state like yours … it’s got tremendous impact on tribes, on local communities.”
Burgum also fielded a question from Hawaii Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono, who asked if Trump planned on ramping up oil production at Bears Ears, and whether that would violate federal law.
“He wants to drill in that monument,” Hirono said, which Burgum dismissed.
“I have not heard anything about President Trump wanting to do anything other than advancing energy production for the benefit of the American people,” Burgum said.
Lee, later in the hearing, called the idea that Trump wants to drill for oil in Bears Ears a “paranoid fantasy.”
“There’s no oil there,” Lee said.
However, reporting from The New York Times suggests potential oil and gas development motivated Trump to rescind Bears Ears in 2017. The area also plays a big role in the American uranium industry, with several companies recently opening exploratory mines near the monument’s boundary.
Poll: Utah voters, regardless of political party, support Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante
That’s what often prompts concerns from tribes and environmental groups. Bears Ears is of rich cultural significance for the region’s tribes, which successfully lobbied the Obama administration to declare the area a national monument. Now, with the future of those protections in question, several environmental groups have come out staunchly opposed to Burgum’s confirmation.
“During today’s hearing Gov. Burgum made it clear that if confirmed, the scales will be wildly tipped in favor of extractive industry and fossil fuels,” said Lauren Hainsworth, a legislative advocate with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, an environmental nonprofit. “Utah’s red rock country and wildest places are national treasures and should be conserved, not exploited.”
The Center for Western Priorities, a conservation and advocacy nonprofit, also had concerns over Burgum’s statements on the Antiquities Act. The group’s executive director Jennifer Rokala said in a statement that the former governor “displayed a worrisome unfamiliarity” with the law.
“Far from being an ‘Indiana Jones’ law, Teddy Roosevelt himself used the Antiquities Act to protect 800,000 acres in and around the Grand Canyon. As a would-be Roosevelt historian, Doug Burgum should know that the Act has been used to protect treasured American landscapes for more than a century,” Rokala said. “Governor Burgum clearly supports oil and gas drilling. He appears eager to use America’s public lands to exacerbate the climate crisis.”
When announcing Burgum as his pick to lead the Interior department in November, Trump also revealed Burgum would head a new National Energy Council, seen as a signal of the administration’s focus on energy production, including fossil fuels.
Recent polling points to Utah voters largely supporting the monument designations. In a survey commissioned by the environmental group Grand Canyon Trust, about 75% of Utah voters support a president’s ability to protect public lands as national monuments, while 67% of respondents say the Biden administration’s restoration of both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in 2021 was “more of a good thing.”
More challenges to the Antiquities Act
Utah GOP Rep. Celeste Maloy unveiled a bill on Thursday that would remove the president’s authority to designate national monuments, instead shifting the authority to Congress.
If passed, the law would mark a major change to how national monuments have been established, a system that’s been in place for more than a century.
Maloy said the law would “rebalance the powers between Congress and the executive branch and restore transparency and accountability to these designations.”
“Congress trusted Presidents with a narrow authority to declare national monuments in the Antiquities Act. Unfortunately, Presidents have continued to abuse that narrow authority to designate millions of acres of land in Utah and across the West without proper Congressional oversight,” Maloy said in a statement.
The news drew swift backlash from environmental groups.
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance called it a “short-sighted bill” that goes against the wishes of voters, both Democrat and Republican; the Center for Western Priorities said any lawmaker that signs Maloy’s bill “will unleash the ire of America’s hunters, anglers, the outdoor industry, and Tribal nations”; the Wilderness Society claimed the law was an attempt to “revoke our beloved national monuments, then sell off the newly undesignated land”; and Earthjustice said the bill “would open the floodgates for polluting industries to carve up beloved and sacred protected spaces for the sake of profit.”
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