Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) moved this week to begin a process that conservation groups say would permanently prevent restoration of the original Bears Ears National Monument, a popular public-land recreation area in southeastern Utah.
The political maneuver comes two months after President Trump shrank the monument by 91 percent, opening it to mining, drilling, and increased off-road vehicle use. If Congress confirms Lee’s expected proposal, it would also strip what little protection remains.
“They’re doing it to make it permanent so nobody can undo their bad policies,” says Land Tawney, co-chairman of American Hunters and Anglers. “It’s another indication that Mike Lee is hell bent on dismantling our public lands policy and in this case the conservation legacy of these very important public lands.”
The wonky procedure began Monday when Lee submitted a Government Accountability Office opinion to the Congressional Record that stated that the original Bears Ears plan was a rule. Now that it’s filed, Lee has 60 U.S. Senate working days to file a joint resolution to overturn the plan, which would require only a simple majority before heading to the president’s desk.
The same maneuver, using the Congressional Review Act, was deployed in April to successfully overturn a mineral withdrawal in the Superior National Forest near the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area.
Lee tried a similar attempt to overturn the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument designation earlier this year. He and the rest of the Utah delegation filed a joint resolution in March, but the 60-day clock ran out before it moved to the full Senate for a vote, says Grant Stevens with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
This week’s news may initially seem irrelevant because Trump already reduced the monument to a slim fraction of its former size, but it has implications for any future administration that might seek to restore more acreage to the monument. Using the CRA in this way means that no rule similar to the one it overturns can be crafted in the future.
That means the current management plan for Bears Ears, which was created in conjunction with local tribes and communities, would never again be allowed, Stevens says.
The news of Lee’s decision to publish the accountability report comes on the heels of a report showing 16 mining claims have already been staked in Bears Ears’ previous boundaries since Trump shrank the monument. Even if Lee’s attempt to use the CRA doesn’t pass, and a new administration restores the old monument, those claims stand.
“We saw this the last go around,” he said, referring to Trump’s first administration when he shrank the monument by about 85 percent. “Mining claims were filed then and we’re still dealing with those from last time.”
Read Next: Trump Cuts 2 Popular Utah National Monuments by About 3 Million Acres
Despite pushback from the Trump administration and some congressional leaders like Lee, national monuments remain broadly popular according to regional polls. Almost 90 percent of respondents in the 2025 nonpartisan State of the Rockies poll out of Colorado College said they supported keeping existing monuments, including 81 percent of respondents who consider themselves MAGA supporters. National monuments also generate broad support in hunting communities for their access to trophy deer and elk herds and backcountry experiences.
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