Some Utah Congressmembers are laying the groundwork to try to overturn the management blueprint for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, a move public lands advocates warn could have implications for other protected areas in the Mountain West.
Last week, Republican Sen. Mike Lee entered a Government Accountability Office opinion into the Congressional Record. The opinion said the Resource Management Plan for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah qualifies as a rule under the 1996 Congressional Review Act. That means Congress could vote to overturn it.
Republican lawmakers are increasingly turning to that act to overturn federal agency decisions, including public lands management plans in Montana and Wyoming last year. But David Feinman, vice president of government affairs at the Conservation Lands Foundation, said it has never before been used to target a national monument management plan.
"If there's any member of Congress who has a problem with any national monument, they would have the precedent to be able to use this tool in this way," he said.
Lee's move could be a first step toward applying the Congressional Review Act to the monument. Republican Rep. Celeste Maloy told E&E News she plans to introduce a resolution of disapproval to overturn the Bureau of Land Management's plan.
Congressional staff for Lee and Maloy did not respond to requests for comment.
President Bill Clinton established the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996 via presidential proclamation under the Antiquities Act. It protected roughly 1.87 million acres known for fossils, geologic features, and cultural sites. During his first term, President Donald Trump shrunk the monument's size and President Joe Biden later restored it.
Utah's congressional delegation criticized the management plan when it was finalized at the end of the Biden administration.
"The [Bureau of Land Management's] plan ignores Utah voices, limits access to grazing and recreation and disregards the economic impacts that this decision will have on local communities," a statement read.
Scrapping the plan would not change the monument's boundaries. But advocates said it would throw out the blueprint guiding how the land is managed, creating uncertainty for grazing permittees, recreation users, and conservation efforts.
Autumn Gillard, coordinator of the Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition, said it could also leave sensitive landscapes and cultural resources vulnerable.
"This monument contains many cultural sites that are still in pristine condition because they have not been surveyed or have not been tampered with — because of protections like the Resource Management Plan," she said.
Gillard added that undoing the plan would disregard the two-year public process that included tribal input.
It's unclear what would follow if Congress were to revoke the management plan under the Congressional Review Act, as the law prohibits agencies from submitting new rules that are substantially similar.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Boise State Public Radio, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio and KJZZ in Arizona as well as NPR, with support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
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