Key facts
- Patagonia has joined a lawsuit challenging Donald Trump's decision to reduce Utah's Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
- The reduction removes protections from nearly 3 million acres of land.
- Trump argued the land reduction would allow for higher-priority uses, including resource extraction for national security.
- Patagonia's CEO stated the orders betray tribal sovereignty and public lands.
- The Natural Resources Defense Council also filed a lawsuit, calling the reduction one of the largest rollbacks of public land protections in U.S. history.
Patagonia, the outdoor clothing and gear company, has joined a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's decision to significantly reduce the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, removing protections from nearly 3 million acres. The company announced Wednesday it was joining the legal challenge to stop what it described as illegal orders that "betray Tribal sovereignty."
In July, Trump approved the reduction of the sites by 90%, clearing the way to open the land to oil and gas companies. He argued in his proclamations that doing so would allow lands to be "put to a higher-priority use" and that they contained critical minerals important to "resource independence …[and] national security."
Patagonia sued Trump in 2017 when he first sought to downsize the public lands in Utah. His proclamations earlier this year represented an even more dramatic reduction of the monuments than he sought in his first term. Ryan Gellert, Patagonia's CEO, stated in a release that "We will not stand idly by while anti-public lands crusaders attempt to exploit these lands for their extractive-industry friends or disrespect tribal nations." Gellert also wrote that the Antiquities Act does not give the executive the authority to undo national monuments, and that Trump's move was an effort to "force secession of federal land to the state and allow private companies to extract natural resources from that land."
The Natural Resources Defense Council, which filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday, described Trump's proclamations as "one of the largest rollbacks of public land protections in US history." Christy Goldfuss, the NRDC executive director, said, "President Trump is trying to destroy them with a stroke of a pen. That cannot stand." She added that once these lands are opened to mining and drilling, irreplaceable natural and cultural heritage would be lost.
Barack Obama established Bears Ears in 2016, following years of advocacy by Indigenous American tribes, while Bill Clinton established Grand Staircase-Escalante. Trump previously targeted the monuments, which are sacred to tribes, in his first term, a move that Joe Biden ultimately overturned.