Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Kane and Garfield Counties, southern Utah · National Monument (reduced boundary as of July 2026) · managed by Bureau of Land Management

Coordinates

37.5, -111.3

Page last verified

2026-08-12

Site maintainer of record

Alicen M.

File

/grand-staircase-escalante

01 — Historical & Cultural Record

President Clinton designated Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument on September 18, 1996. Proclamation 6920 states that the land reserved "consist[s] of approximately 1.7 million acres," protecting a geologically layered landscape of cliffs, plateaus, and canyons along with significant paleontological and archaeological resources.³¹⁸ The monument's extent was later described by the Bureau of Land Management as nearly 1.9 million acres, and it stood at approximately 1.87 million acres immediately before the 2026 reduction.²⁷²

02 — Current Threat

On December 4, 2017, Proclamation 9682 reduced the monument to "approximately 1,003,863 acres" in three units — Grand Staircase, Kaiparowits, and Escalante Canyons — removing approximately 861,974 acres.²² It stated that the boundaries set by Proclamation 6920 were "greater than the smallest area compatible with the protection of the objects," and reopened the excluded lands to public-land entry, mineral and geothermal leasing, and location and patent under the mining laws 60 days after signing.⁴ On October 8, 2021, Proclamation 10286 restored the monument to approximately 1.87 million acres — the boundary as it stood on December 3, 2017 — stating that the 2017 proclamation had excluded "nearly half of the lands reserved in Proclamation 6920," including portions of the Circle Cliffs and Waterpocket Fold.⁵ Utah and Garfield and Kane Counties sued to nullify the restoration; on August 11, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah dismissed that challenge (No. 4:22-cv-00059-DN-PK).⁷ On June 23, 2026, the Tenth Circuit affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded the case, holding that sovereign immunity did not bar all review of the President's actions — returning to the district court the question of whether the designations exceeded the President's Antiquities Act authority. That challenge remains unresolved.⁶⁸ On January 13, 2025, the BLM issued the Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan for the monument. On January 15, 2026, the Government Accountability Office concluded that the plan "meets [the Administrative Procedure Act's] definition of a rule" and that no Congressional Review Act exception applied, making it subject to the CRA's submission requirements and so open to a resolution of disapproval.¹⁰ BLM had released the proposed plan and final environmental impact statement on August 29, 2024, covering nearly 1.87 million acres, with Alternative C as the agency's preferred alternative and four management areas — front country, passage, outback and primitive — governing visitation and allowable uses.²⁴ Senator Mike Lee and Representative Celeste Maloy introduced that resolution as S.J.Res.109; the GAO opinion letter was printed in the Congressional Record on February 25, 2026.¹¹ The resolution's expedited fast-track privilege lapsed on June 11, 2026 without a Senate vote, leaving it subject to the ordinary 60-vote threshold.¹¹ Separately, on July 13, 2026 — the same day as the Bears Ears reduction — President Trump signed a proclamation modifying Grand Staircase-Escalante. The proclamation describes the modified reservation as "approximately 181,541 acres" in two units — Canyons of the Escalante (approximately 172,641 acres) and Kaiparowits Horizon (approximately 8,900 acres) — a reduction of approximately 1.69 million acres from the approximately 1.87 million-acre monument that preceded it.¹² As with Bears Ears, excluded lands are slated to reopen to new mining claims and mineral leasing approximately 60 days after signing, on September 11, 2026.¹

03 — Documented Impact: Environmental

Geology: The monument's defining feature is the Grand Staircase itself — a sequence of exposed geological terraces spanning roughly 260 million years of Earth history, ascending from the Grand Canyon to Bryce Canyon. Proclamation 6920 describes it as "a vast geologic stairway, named the Grand Staircase by pioneering geologist Clarence Dutton, which rises 5,500 feet to the rim of Bryce Canyon in an unbroken sequence of great cliffs and plateaus," and records that the monument's sedimentary layers are "relatively undeformed and unobscured by vegetation." The same document puts the Kaiparowits Plateau at about 1,600 square miles of sedimentary rock, and identifies the East Kaibab Monocline (the Cockscomb), the Circle Cliffs, part of the Waterpocket Fold, and the naturally burning coal seams of the Burning Hills.³ The proclamation states that including part of the Waterpocket Fold "completes the protection of this geologic feature begun with the establishment of Capitol Reef National Monument in 1938 (Proclamation No. 2246, 50 Stat. 1856)," and records arches and natural bridges including the 130-foot-high Escalante Natural Bridge, with a 100-foot span, and Grosvenor Arch, "a rare double arch." It describes the region as "the last place in the continental United States to be mapped."³

The Utah Geological Association's survey of the monument's geology divides it into three geographical sections, west to east: the Grand Staircase, the Kaiparowits Basin, and the Escalante Canyons. Rock formations exposed across them "range in age from Permian to Cretaceous comprising more than 200 million years of Earth's history," dipping gently northward and deformed by mostly north-south-trending faults, anticlines, synclines and monoclines. The staircase itself begins at the top of the Kaibab uplift, which sits "in the same stratigraphic position as the highest bench of the Grand Canyon in Arizona," rising through the Chocolate Cliffs to a final riser of Pink Cliffs — lower Tertiary limestones and marls — culminating in the Paunsaugunt Plateau. The monument's oldest rocks, Permian units comprising the Hermit Shale, Coconino Sandstone, Toroweap Formation and Kaibab Limestone, are exposed at Buckskin Gulch. The same survey records that the monument's known coal, oil and gas, and mineral resources are "generally undeveloped because market areas are distant" and because transport routes are limited.¹⁴

About 68 percent of the monument lies in Kane County and 32 percent in Garfield County; conversely about 49 percent of Kane County and 18 percent of Garfield County lie within the monument boundaries. Following designation, Congress passed the Utah Schools and Land Exchange Act, transferring 176,699 acres of state trust land and 24,000 acres of trust mineral interests inside the monument to the federal government, with Utah receiving federal land elsewhere, mineral royalties, and a one-time cash payment in exchange.¹⁴ The Kaiparowits coal field is high quality, extensive, and conducive to underground mining. The monument overall holds low-to-moderate potential for oil and gas (one boundary-adjacent field has produced over 29 million barrels since 1964, but other drilling in the vicinity has produced only dry holes) and low potential for most metals and industrial minerals.¹⁸

Paleontological Resources: The monument is one of the richest dinosaur-fossil regions in North America. The Bureau of Land Management states that 14 dinosaurs have been discovered in the monument as new species.²⁷ Grand Canyon Trust puts the number found nowhere else on Earth at at least 15.²⁶ Species formally described from monument rock units in the peer-reviewed literature include the tyrannosaurs Lythronax argestes, from the Wahweap Formation, and Teratophoneus curriei, from the Kaiparowits Formation;²⁸ the horned dinosaurs Utahceratops gettyi and Kosmoceratops richardsoni;²⁹ and the armored ankylosaurid Akainacephalus johnsoni.³⁰³¹ Finds also include six crocodile species, 17 turtle species, fossilized dinosaur skin, and exceptionally preserved plant fossils with leaves intact. Proclamation 6920 records that fossils "including marine and brackish water mollusks, turtles, crocodilians, lizards, dinosaurs, fishes, and mammals" have been recovered from the Dakota, Tropic Shale and Wahweap Formations and from the Tibbet Canyon, Smoky Hollow and John Henry members of the Straight Cliffs Formation; that within the monument these formations "have produced the only evidence in our hemisphere of terrestrial vertebrate fauna, including mammals, of the Cenomanian-Santonian ages"; and that the sequence contains "one of the best and most continuous records of Late Cretaceous terrestrial life in the world." It also records petrified wood in the Circle Cliffs including "large unbroken logs exceeding 30 feet in length."³ The Kaiparowits Formation specifically represents a scientifically significant record of a vanished, one-fifth-of-Africa-sized landmass called Laramidia. The Utah Geological Survey's 2001 paleontological survey, prepared for the BLM, records "more than 800 individual fossil localities" then known within the monument, in formations ranging in age from Permian to Cretaceous, and notes that "almost all areas of the monument that were examined contain at least some fossil material." Its findings included the first fossils of any kind from the Entrada Sandstone in the monument — among them a dinosaur tracksite "containing more than 250 tracks of at least 30 individuals" — and it states that research on the monument's Cretaceous strata "is still in its earliest stages."¹² An earlier UGS inventory, Circular 96, catalogued the monument's paleontological resources immediately after designation.¹³ Excavation is an active, ongoing BLM/museum partnership program.⁹

The 2001 survey records that "twenty sedimentary geological formations are exposed in the monument, and fossils are known from all but three of these formations," with Quaternary sediments also carrying potential for Pleistocene fossils. Its Table 2 lists taxa found during that survey alone that were previously unknown from the monument, spanning fifteen formations — a sponge genus (Actinoceolia) from the Kaibab Limestone; ammonoids and nautiloids from the Moenkopi; plant and reptile-track material from the Chinle; theropod and other reptile trackways from the Wingate, Moenave, Kayenta, Navajo and Entrada; bivalves and gastropods from the Carmel; sauropod tracks, crocodilian teeth and possible termite-nest structures from the Morrison; angiosperm leaves and ammonoids from the Dakota; ammonoids from the Tropic Shale; dinosaur tracks from the Straight Cliffs; a ceratopsian dinosaur skull from the Wahweap; and crayfish burrows from the Kaiparowits. The survey notes it only spot-surveyed formations, because "a comprehensive survey of the monument would take many years and was beyond the scope of this project." Localities were rated against BLM sensitivity guidelines, with Class I (Critical) reserved for those producing type, very rare, or reference fossil material.¹²

One locality documents both of the monument's resource types at once: the survey records the Flag Point dinosaur trackway in the Jurassic Kayenta Formation, and a rock art panel near it depicting dinosaur tracks.¹²

By 2006 the Kaiparowits Basin Project reported to BLM's science symposium that its finds "more than double the known diversity" of dinosaurs from the Kaiparowits Formation, with several taxa represented by mostly complete skulls and postcrania "as well as integumentary impressions." Among them were three new ceratopsid (horned dinosaur) taxa from the middle unit of the formation — two long-frilled chasmosaurines and one short-frilled centrosaurine, all then undescribed. Two of those were formally named Utahceratops gettyi and Kosmoceratops richardsoni four years later.¹⁵²⁹ The same report described hadrosaurids including one species of Parasaurolophus and two stratigraphically separated species of Gryposaurus, which it identified as "one of the few examples of within-lineage faunal turnover for the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Basin."¹⁵ Excluding these fossil beds from monument protection exposes deposits — including sites not yet discovered or excavated — to surface disturbance from mining or drilling before they can be studied.

Habitat & Water: Proclamation 6920 identifies the monument's biological resources among the objects it was created to protect. It records a landscape "spanning five life zones from low-lying desert to coniferous forest, with scarce and scattered water sources," and places the blending of warm and cold desert floras, with a high number of endemic species, "in the heart of perhaps the richest floristic region in the Intermountain West." It describes isolated communities — hanging gardens, tinajas, and rock crevice, canyon bottom and dunal pocket communities — that "have provided refugia for many ancient plant species for millennia," and an "extraordinary number of areas of relict vegetation, many of which have existed since the Pleistocene," including the relict grasslands of No Mans Mesa and pinyon-juniper communities "containing trees up to 1,400 years old." It records over 200 species of birds including bald eagles and peregrine falcons; mountain lion, bear and desert bighorn sheep; and wildlife concentrating around the Paria and Escalante Rivers and other riparian corridors.³

Two of the proclamation's findings bear directly on surface disturbance. It states that "most of the ecological communities contained in the monument have low resistance to, and slow recovery from, disturbance," and that fragile cryptobiotic crusts "play a critical role throughout the monument, stabilizing the highly erodible desert soils and providing nutrients to plants." It also records an abundance of packrat middens providing "insight into the vegetation and climate of the past 25,000 years."³

The 2025 approved management plan drew a mixed assessment from Western Watersheds Project, which recorded improvements on livestock management — retained grazing closures in the Escalante Canyons, limits on grazing in heavily degraded areas, permanent retirement of allotments where permits are voluntarily relinquished, rangeland health assessments on all allotments within two years, and closures where grazing conflicts with recreation at Lower Calf Creek Falls and Muley Twist canyon — while objecting to the plan's continued vegetation treatments and permitted use of non-native seed, which it argues risk cheatgrass invasion and destruction of biological soil crust that takes decades to recover.²⁰ That last concern bears on Proclamation 6920's own finding about the role of cryptobiotic crusts in stabilizing the monument's highly erodible soils.³

Survey work presented to BLM's 2006 science symposium quantified part of that biological richness. An aquatic invertebrate survey recorded 151 genera in monument streams, against 42 genera reported by a comparable earlier study, and 109 invertebrate taxa across 42 tinajas — compared with 44 taxa from 460 tinajas surveyed in and adjacent to Capitol Reef National Park. The authors noted that other studies of south-western tinajas and wetlands "consistently have found fewer taxa." The same proceedings include research on prey dynamics within Mexican spotted owl nest areas in the monument, a species listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.¹⁵

Research on the watershed has continued through the reduction. The Escalante River Watershed Partnership's March 2025 symposium convened researchers from the USGS, the University of Utah, Colorado State University, the BLM and the US Forest Service alongside Hopi, San Juan Southern Paiute and Santa Clara Pueblo representatives, across sessions on riparian recovery, wetlands management, monsoon hydrology, fire ecology and biodiversity, and referenced a 50-year repeat-photography record of the Escalante watershed.¹⁹

A habitat and species inventory and a water-resource assessment specific to the 2026 excluded lands — identifying which of these communities fall outside the retained 181,541 acres — is not yet documented in current sourcing. The proclamation states that it "does not reserve water as a matter of Federal law."³

Long-Term Effects: Paleontologists and conservation groups have specifically noted that fossils not yet discovered — an unknown but potentially substantial share of the monument's total paleontological resource, given active discoveries continuing after 25+ years of fieldwork — are now at risk of being destroyed or lost to research before they are ever found, a loss that is by definition unrecoverable and unquantifiable in advance.³²¹²

03 — Documented Impact: Cultural & Archaeological

Proclamation 6920 identifies cultural resources among the objects the monument was created to protect. It records that archeological inventories "show extensive use of places within the monument by ancient Native American cultures," that the area "was a contact point for the Anasazi and Fremont cultures" (the proclamation's 1996 terminology; "Ancestral Puebloan" is now the more common usage for the former), and that "the cultural resources discovered so far in the monument are outstanding in their variety of cultural affiliation, type and distribution." It counts "hundreds of recorded sites," including rock art panels, occupation sites, campsites and granaries, and states that many further undocumented sites of scientific and historic value exist within the monument.³

The proclamation also records continuing use by modern tribal groups including the Southern Paiute and Navajo; John Wesley Powell's 1872 expedition, which carried out initial mapping and scientific field work in the area; and Mormon pioneer resources including trails, inscriptions, ghost towns such as the Old Paria townsite, rock houses, and cowboy line camps. Sixty miles of the Hole-in-the-Rock Trail lie within the monument, as does Dance Hall Rock, which the proclamation identifies as a National Historic Site.³

The Utah Geological Survey's 1997 archaeological assessment of the monument records occupation by Archaic hunter-gatherers from roughly 9,000 to 2,500 years ago, with sites concentrated in caves and rock shelters but including a substantial number of open sites, and fluted points characteristic of earlier Paleoindian occupation recovered from areas near the monument. That assessment also notes how little of the area has been inventoried: within the preceding decade it counted 456 cultural-resource management inventory projects in Garfield County and 287 in Kane County, against 1,118 in San Juan County alone.¹⁶ The monument's archaeological record is therefore documented at a lower density than neighbouring areas, a point that bears on what may lie unrecorded in the excluded lands.

BLM's own decade review, presented to its 2006 science symposium, describes an active cultural resources programme rather than a static inventory. It records a Class I overview of the monument's cultural resources (Spangler 2001), an archaeological survey of the Kaiparowits Plateau (Geib, Collette and Spurr 2001), and a complete archaeological inventory of the Escalante River canyon within the monument produced with Brigham Young University and Northern Arizona University from 1999. It also records two commissioned tribal ethnographies — an ethnographic assessment of Kaibab Paiute resources (Stoffle et al. 2001) and a Hopi ethnographic overview (Bernardini, then in press) — undertaken to support the monument's tribal consultation programme, with further ethnographies planned with other tribes. More than 200 oral histories had been documented through the Utah Oral History Program, and ongoing studies included the effects of grazing-related activities on archaeological sites and rock art stabilisation.¹⁵

A resource assessment identifying which of these specific cultural sites fall inside the 181,541 acres retained and which fall in the excluded lands is not yet documented in current sourcing. Southern Utah University's Grand Staircase-Escalante digital collection holds archival material on the monument for researchers seeking primary documents.²¹

03 — Documented Impact: Economic & Fiscal

The Kaiparowits Plateau within the monument holds an estimated coal reserve roughly twice the size of the rest of Utah's known coal, per prior BLM/state geological assessment, but industry analysts have noted the remote location, lack of rail/transport infrastructure, and coal's declining economic competitiveness make large-scale extraction commercially uncertain regardless of monument status. Historical analysis of the one pre-monument lease holder (Andalex) found that even full development would have generated only about $36,000 annually in interest for Utah's public school trust fund, against a state education budget of $1.7 billion at the time — undercutting claims that monument protection caused major state revenue loss. A current fiscal analysis specific to the 2026 reduction is not yet documented. A 2026 Conservation in the West poll found 86% of Utah residents support keeping existing national monument designations for public lands protected over the last decade in place.²⁵

03 — Documented Impact: Legal Status

Proclamation 6920 was issued under section 2 of the Act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225, 16 U.S.C. 431), the Antiquities Act, which the proclamation notes confines a monument's limits "to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected." The 1996 proclamation asserts that the approximately 1.7 million acres it reserved was that smallest compatible area. It withdrew all federal lands within the boundary "from entry, location, selection, sale, leasing, or other disposition under the public land laws," subject to valid existing rights, and provided that the monument would not affect Utah's management of fish and wildlife, would not alter existing grazing permits or levels, and did not reserve water as a matter of federal law.³ Proclamation 9682 invoked that same limitation in 2017, stating the 6920 boundaries were "greater than the smallest area compatible with the protection of the objects."⁴

The scope of that limitation is now before the courts. In Garfield County, Utah v. Trump, the Tenth Circuit held on June 23, 2026 that when a President "exceeds statutory limits placed on his power, his actions are not those of the sovereign," but instead "acts ultra vires and enjoys no immunity from suit," so that "federal courts may review presidential acts alleged to exceed lawful authority." The panel affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for further proceedings.⁶⁸

Two distinct lines of litigation run in opposite directions. The 2017 reduction was challenged in the District of Columbia by conservation plaintiffs in The Wilderness Society v. Trump, No. 1:17-cv-02587 (TSC), consolidated with Grand Staircase Escalante Partners v. Trump, No. 1:17-cv-02591, with the American Farm Bureau Federation among the defendant-intervenors; those plaintiffs moved for partial summary judgment in January 2020, arguing the Antiquities Act does not authorise a President to dismantle an existing monument.¹⁷ The Garfield County case runs the other way: Utah and two counties challenging the 2021 restoration as exceeding the same statute. The named appellants there are Garfield County and Kane County, the State of Utah, Governor Spencer J. Cox and Attorney General Sean D. Reyes, the BlueRibbon Coalition, and individuals Zebediah George Dalton, Kyle Kimmerle and Suzette Ranea Morris.⁶ Both turn on the scope of presidential authority under the Antiquities Act. The Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Pueblo of Zuni, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance appear as defendant-intervenors in the Garfield County case, defending the designations.⁶

Responding to the July 13, 2026 proclamations, more than 30 conservation and Tribal organizations — among them the Grand Staircase Inter-Tribal Coalition, the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and Utah Diné Bikéyah — stated their opposition, and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance stated: "We will challenge this unlawful decision in federal court." The same statement records the 2017 proclamations as having reduced Bears Ears by 87% and Grand Staircase-Escalante by 45%.²³

The Congressional Review Act fast-track resolution targeting the monument's 2025 resource management plan lost its expedited privilege without a Senate vote on June 11, 2026.¹¹ Litigation history includes Utah's challenge to the Biden administration's 2021 restoration, dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah on August 11, 2023 and then revived on appeal: on June 23, 2026 the Tenth Circuit vacated in part and remanded, leaving the question of the President's Antiquities Act authority open before the district court.⁶⁸ Litigation history also includes a Society of Vertebrate Paleontology lawsuit (filed December 2017, later combined with environmental and tribal lawsuits) specifically over the earlier rollback's threat to paleontological resources; that combined litigation was ongoing as of prior reporting. New legal challenges to the July 2026 proclamation were anticipated but not yet filed as of this page's last verification.

03 — Documented Impact: Human Health

Not yet documented — no dedicated human-health impact study specific to the 2026 boundary reduction (as distinct from the pre-monument Andalex-era coal debate) was identified in current sourcing.

03 — Tribal / Public Consultation Status

Not yet documented — a tribal or public consultation record specific to the July 13, 2026 boundary reduction was not identified in current sourcing, distinct from the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's 2017 litigation over the earlier rollback.

04 — Named Companies & Responsible Parties

• Alton Coal Development, LLC (Existing/adjacent mine operator seeking expansion) — Operates the Coal Hollow surface mine adjacent to the monument in the Alton coalfield and has sought to expand mining operations bordering Bryce Canyon NP, Zion NP, and Grand Staircase-Escalante [Not yet documented — specific expansion-project valuation not established in current sourcing]
  Source: https://www.grandcanyontrust.org/resources/alton-coal-proposed-mine-expansion-map/
• Andalex Resources Inc. (historical) (Prior coal lease holder, Kaiparowits Plateau (grandfathered into the original 1996 monument)) — Held the only viable pre-monument coal leases on the Kaiparowits Plateau; contemporary analysis found the company had planned to mine roughly $48 million worth of coal annually for 30 years [$48 million/year projected coal value (historical estimate); ~$624,000/year projected state revenue]
  Source: https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/337422-leave-the-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monument/
• Bureau of Land Management (Administering agency) — Manages the reduced monument and reopened lands; issued the Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan on January 13, 2025
  Source: https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-releases-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monument-proposed-management-plan

05 — Recorded Opposition & Support

• Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Pueblo of Zuni, and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe (Defendant-intervenors defending the monument designations in Garfield County, Utah v. Trump before the Tenth Circuit, 2026-06-23) — source
• Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (Defendant-intervenor in Garfield County, Utah v. Trump; stated after the July 2026 proclamations, "We will challenge this unlawful decision in federal court", 2026-07-13) — source
• Grand Staircase Inter-Tribal Coalition (Autumn Gillard) (Among 30+ conservation and Tribal organizations opposing the July 13 2026 proclamations, 2026-07-13) — source
• Utah Diné Bikéyah (Mark Maryboy) (Among the Tribal organizations opposing the July 13 2026 proclamations, 2026-07-13) — source
• Earthjustice (Successfully challenged the first Trump administration's 2017 cuts to Grand Staircase and Bears Ears, 2026) — source
• Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (Sued over the 2017 rollback's threat to paleontological resources; case combined with other litigation, 2017-12 (ongoing per prior reporting)) — source
• The Wilderness Society (Opposes the reduction; cites Utah polling showing majority support for existing monument protections, 2026) — source

06 — Timeline of Developments

• 1996-09 President Clinton designates Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by Proclamation 6920, reserving approximately 1.7 million acres.
• 1999 Systematic dinosaur fossil discoveries begin picking up significantly in the monument.
• 2017-12 Proclamation 9682 (December 4) reduces the monument to approximately 1,003,863 acres in three units, removing approximately 861,974 acres; Society of Vertebrate Paleontology sues.
• 2021-10 Proclamation 10286 (October 8) restores the monument to approximately 1.87 million acres — the boundary as it stood on December 3, 2017.
• 2023-08-11 U.S. District Court for the District of Utah dismisses Utah's challenge to the Biden restoration (Garfield County v. Biden, No. 4:22-cv-00059-DN-PK).
• 2026-06-23 Tenth Circuit affirms in part, vacates in part, and remands, holding that sovereign immunity does not bar all review of the President's Antiquities Act designations; the challenge returns to the district court unresolved (No. 23-4106).
• 2025 BLM adopts a new resource management plan for the monument.
• 2026-01-15 GAO rules the 2025 RMP counts as a rule under the Congressional Review Act, opening a fast-track repeal window.
• 2026-06-11 The Senate's 60-day fast-track window on the CRA resolution expires without a vote.
• 2026-07-13 Trump signs proclamation cutting the monument to 181,541 acres, the same day as the Bears Ears reduction.

07 — Sources

Primary

• 1 · PrimaryModifying the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (presidential proclamation, signed July 13 2026) — Federal Register, 2026-07-17. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/07/17/2026-14549/modifying-the-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monument
  Supports: 181,541-acre modified boundary, Canyons of the Escalante and Kaiparowits Horizon units, 60-day effective date
• 2 · PrimaryModifying the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (presidential action) — The White House, 2026-07. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/07/modifying-the-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monument/
  Supports: Stated rationale for the modification, proclamation text as issued
• 3 · PrimaryPresidential Proclamation 6920 — Establishment of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, 61 Fed. Reg. 50223 — Office of the President (via Bureau of Land Management), 1996-09-18. https://www.blm.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/Grand%20Staircase-Escalante%20National%20Monument%20Presidential%20Proclamation%206920.pdf
  Supports: 1996 designation date and the approximately 1.7 million acres reserved, quoted from the proclamation text
• 4 · PrimaryProclamation 9682 — Modifying the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (first reduction) — Office of the President (via The American Presidency Project), 2017-12-04. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-9682-modifying-the-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monument
  Supports: 2017 reduction to approximately 1,003,863 acres in three units, approximately 861,974 acres removed, stated smallest-area rationale, 60-day reopening mechanism
• 5 · PrimaryProclamation 10286 — Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (restoration) — Office of the President (via The American Presidency Project), 2021-10-08. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-10286-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monument
  Supports: 2021 restoration to approximately 1.87 million acres, restoring the boundary as it stood on December 3, 2017
• 6 · PrimaryGarfield County, Utah v. Trump, Nos. 23-4106 & 23-4107 (10th Cir., filed June 23 2026) — slip opinion, Carson, J., joined by Rossman and Federico, JJ.; on appeal from D. Utah No. 4:22-CV-00059-DN — United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, 2026-06-23. https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/utahs-monument-challenge-10th-circuit-decision-6-23-06.pdf
  Supports: Disposition affirming in part, vacating in part and remanding; holding that a President acting beyond statutory limits acts ultra vires and enjoys no immunity from suit
• 7 · PrimaryGarfield County v. Biden, No. 23-4106 (10th Cir. 2026) — case record and docket history — Justia, 2026-06-23. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/23-4106/23-4106-2026-06-23.html
  Supports: Docket history including the August 11 2023 district court dismissal under the original Garfield County v. Biden caption
• 8 · PrimaryTenth Circuit Sends Monuments Case Back to District Court — Harvard Environmental & Energy Law Program, 2026. https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/tenth-circuit-sends-monuments-case-back-to-district-court/
  Supports: Procedural posture of the remand: sovereign immunity, standing, and ripeness holdings
• 9 · PrimaryGrand Staircase-Escalante National Monument nets important dinosaur discovery — Bureau of Land Management, 2022-02-11. https://www.blm.gov/blog/2022-02-11/grand-staircase-escalante-national-monument-nets-important-dinosaur-discovery
  Supports: BLM paleontology program details, ongoing fossil discovery process
• 10 · PrimaryDepartment of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management — Applicability of the Congressional Review Act to the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan (B-337705) — U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2026-01-15. https://www.gao.gov/products/b-337705
  Supports: Verified against the decision: BLM issued the Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan on January 13 2025 (90 Fed. Reg. 2741), having initiated the plan in July 2022, covering 1.87 million acres; GAO concluded the plan "meets APA's definition of a rule, and that no CRA exception applies", making it "a rule subject to CRA's submission requirements"
• 11 · PrimaryS.J.Res.109, 119th Congress — joint resolution of disapproval of the BLM rule relating to the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan — United States Congress (Congress.gov), 2026. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/109/text
  Supports: Text and sponsorship of the CRA disapproval resolution, and the GAO opinion letter of January 15 2026 as printed in the Congressional Record on February 25 2026
• 12 · PrimaryPaleontological Survey of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Garfield and Kane Counties, Utah — Special Study 99 — Utah Geological Survey (Foster, Titus, Winterfeld, Hayden & Hamblin), prepared for the Bureau of Land Management, 2001. https://ugspub.nr.utah.gov/publications/special_studies/ss-99.pdf
  Supports: More than 800 known fossil localities; formations ranging Permian to Cretaceous; the Entrada Sandstone tracksite of more than 250 tracks from at least 30 individuals; and the survey's statement that research on these strata remains in its earliest stages
• 13 · PrimaryA Preliminary Inventory of Paleontological Resources Within the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument — Circular 96 — Utah Geological Survey (Gillette & Hayden), 1997. https://ugspub.nr.utah.gov/publications/circular/C-96.pdf
  Supports: The first post-designation inventory of the monument's paleontological resources and its bibliography of prior paleontological work
• 14 · PrimaryGeology of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah — in Geology of Utah's Parks and Monuments, Utah Geological Association Publication 28 — Doelling, Blackett, Hamblin, Powell & Pollock (hosted by the Bureau of Land Management), 2000. https://www.blm.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/Geology%20of%20GSENM.pdf
  Supports: The monument's three geographical sections; exposed rocks ranging Permian to Cretaceous across more than 200 million years; the Grand Staircase riser sequence from the Chocolate Cliffs to the Pink Cliffs and Paunsaugunt Plateau; the oldest exposed Permian units at Buckskin Gulch; county distribution of monument acreage; and the Utah Schools and Land Exchange Act transfer of SITLA trust lands
• 15 · PrimaryLearning from the Land: Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Science Symposium Proceedings 2006 (Southern Utah University, September 12-14 2006) — U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management; produced by Grand Staircase-Escalante Partners, 2006. https://www.npshistory.com/publications/blm/grand-staircase-escalante/science-symposium-2006.pdf
  Supports: 560-page peer-presented proceedings of BLM's second monument science symposium, covering the Kaiparowits Basin Project's dinosaur findings, aquatic invertebrate biodiversity surveys, hydrology, pinyon-juniper ecology, and the first decade of the monument's cultural resources program
• 16 · PrimaryA Preliminary Assessment of Archaeological Resources Within the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah — Circular 95 — Utah Geological Survey (David B. Madsen), 1997. https://ugspub.nr.utah.gov/publications/circular/C-95.pdf
  Supports: Cultural sequence including Archaic occupation from roughly 9,000 to 2,500 years ago, and the comparatively small number of cultural-resource inventory projects recorded in Garfield and Kane Counties
• 17 · PrimaryMemorandum in Support of TWS Plaintiffs' Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, The Wilderness Society v. Trump, No. 1:17-cv-02587 (TSC) (D.D.C., filed Jan. 9 2020), consolidated with Grand Staircase Escalante Partners v. Trump, No. 1:17-cv-02591 — United States District Court for the District of Columbia (filing hosted by NRDC), 2020-01-09. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/tws_grand_staircase_msj_brief.pdf
  Supports: The consolidated 2017 challenge to Proclamation 9682, including plaintiffs' Antiquities Act arguments and the procedural history of that litigation
• 18 · PrimaryResource Overview for the Original 1996 Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument — Utah Geological Survey, n.d.. https://ugspub.nr.utah.gov/publications/public_information/pi-103.pdf
  Supports: Coal, oil/gas, and mineral development-potential assessment

Secondary

• 19 · SecondaryGrand Staircase-Escalante Symposium 2025 — "Ways of Understanding and Protecting Land and Water Resources in the Grand Staircase-Escalante Region" — Escalante River Watershed Partnership, 2025-03-20. https://escalanteriverwatershedpartnership.org/what-we-do/grand-staircase-escalante-symposium-2025/
  Supports: Continuing multi-agency and tribal research in the monument as of March 2025, with participants from USGS, the University of Utah, Colorado State University, BLM and the US Forest Service alongside Hopi, San Juan Southern Paiute and Santa Clara Pueblo representatives; session topics spanning riparian recovery, wetlands management, monsoon hydrology, fire ecology and biodiversity; and a referenced 50-year repeat-photography record of the Escalante watershed. Programme listing only — it reports no quantitative findings
• 20 · SecondaryNew Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Land Use Plan Has Improvements on Livestock Management, but Extends Deforestation — Western Watersheds Project (advocacy organization), 2025-01-10. https://westernwatersheds.org/2025/01/new-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monument-land-use-plan-has-improvements-on-livestock-management-but-extends-deforestation/
  Supports: Grazing provisions of the 2025 approved plan, including retained Escalante Canyons closures, voluntary allotment retirement, two-year rangeland health assessments, and the organization's stated objections to vegetation treatments and non-native seeding
• 21 · SecondaryGrand Staircase-Escalante National Monument digital collection — Southern Utah University, Sherratt Library Special Collections, n.d.. https://contentdm.li.suu.edu/digital/collection/GSENM/search/searchterm/Grand%20Staircase-Escalante%20National%20Monument%20(Utah)/field/subjec/mode/exact/conn/and
  Supports: Archival and primary-document holdings relating to the monument, offered as a research pointer rather than as support for a specific factual claim
• 22 · SecondaryTrump Administration Moves to Slash National Monuments by Nearly 3 Million Acres — Earthjustice (advocacy organization; party to the monument litigation), 2026. https://earthjustice.org/brief/2026/trump-administration-moves-to-slash-national-monuments-by-nearly-3-million-acres
  Supports: That the 2017 proclamation cut roughly half of the monument, and that Biden reversed it in 2021. This page carries no acreage figures, does not mention the 1996 designation, and does not discuss the 2023 or 2026 court rulings; those are cited to the proclamations and the Tenth Circuit opinion above.
• 23 · SecondaryTrump Slashes Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments for Second Time — Center for Biological Diversity (advocacy organization), 2026-07-13. https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/trump-slashes-bears-ears-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monuments-for-second-time-2026-07-13/
  Supports: Stated positions and litigation intentions of 30+ conservation and Tribal organizations responding to the July 13 2026 proclamations, including the Grand Staircase Inter-Tribal Coalition and Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance
• 24 · SecondaryBLM Releases Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Proposed Management Plan — Bureau of Land Management, 2024-08-29. https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-releases-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monument-proposed-management-plan
  Supports: The proposed RMP/Final EIS covering nearly 1.87 million acres, Alternative C as BLM's preferred alternative, and the four management areas (front country, passage, outback, primitive)
• 25 · SecondaryNational Monuments: Grand Staircase-Escalante — The Wilderness Society, n.d.. https://www.wilderness.org/wild-places/utah/national-monuments-grand-staircase-escalante
  Supports: 2026 Utah polling figure, coal-deposit boundary framing
• 26 · SecondaryDinosaur Finds in Grand Staircase-Escalante — Grand Canyon Trust, 2025-01-26. https://www.grandcanyontrust.org/blog/dinosaur-finds-grand-staircase-escalante/
  Supports: Species diversity, fossil preservation quality
• 27 · SecondaryGrand Staircase-Escalante National Monument: 25th Anniversary — Bureau of Land Management, 2021. https://www.blm.gov/national-conservation-lands/utah/gsenm-25-anniversary
  Supports: BLM's count of 14 dinosaurs discovered as new species within the monument
• 28 · SecondaryTyrant Dinosaur Evolution Tracks the Rise and Fall of Late Cretaceous Oceans (original description of Lythronax argestes) — PLOS ONE (Loewen et al.), 2013-11-06. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0079420
  Supports: Lythronax argestes from the Wahweap Formation (~80 Ma) and Teratophoneus curriei from the Kaiparowits Formation (~76 Ma)
• 29 · SecondaryNew Horned Dinosaurs from Utah Provide Evidence for Intracontinental Dinosaur Endemism (original descriptions of Utahceratops and Kosmoceratops) — PLOS ONE (Sampson et al.), 2010. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2929175/
  Supports: Utahceratops gettyi and Kosmoceratops richardsoni, and the endemism of the Kaiparowits fauna
• 30 · SecondaryA new southern Laramidian ankylosaurid, Akainacephalus johnsoni gen. et sp. nov., from the upper Campanian Kaiparowits Formation of southern Utah, USA — PeerJ (Wiersma & Irmis), 2018. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6063217/
  Supports: Akainacephalus johnsoni as a new ankylosaurid genus and species from the Kaiparowits Formation
• 31 · SecondarySpectacular Armored Dinosaur Found in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument — National Geographic, 2022-01-26. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/news-akainacephalus-fossils-paleontology-grand-staircase-escalante
  Supports: Society of Vertebrate Paleontology litigation
• 32 · SecondaryYet-to-be-discovered dinosaur fossils may be at risk after Trump slashed the size of Grand Staircase — Salt Lake Tribune (AP), 2018-11-01. https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2018/11/01/yet-to-be-discovered/
  Supports: Undiscovered-fossil risk framing (applies structurally to the 2026 reduction)

Corrections Log

None on record as of 2026-08-12 (page last substantially expanded).