Utah's GOP governor objects to Project 2025's call for repeal of the Antiquities Act

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox has his issues with how the federal government manages its public lands in the state. But he thinks the Antiquities Act, which allows the president to designate national monuments without congressional approval, should remain.

That’s at odds with the conservative Project 2025 initiative, which calls for the repeal of the act, established in 1906 and used to safeguard some of America’s most iconic public lands.

“I don’t support a complete repeal,” Cox said Friday during the monthly PBS Utah press conference with the governor. “I think the Antiquities Act has value. The problem is the Antiquities Act has not been used the way it was intended to be used.”

Published by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, Project 2025 is a manifesto describing the various policies that a new Republican administration could enact. It touches on issues like immigration, defense, regulations, the environment and the economy.

Referring to Grand Staircase-Escalante, the manifesto decries “the designation of a vast national monument in Utah over the objections of Utah leaders — but with the support of the Hollywood elite.” It accuses the U.S. Department of Interior of abusing the Antiquities Act and recommends the second Trump administration, if elected, take “a fresh look at past monument decrees.”

Cox, while not advocating for a repeal, echoed some of the sentiments in Project 2025, telling reporters he takes issue with “large scale, million-acre deployments” — that includes national monuments like Bears Ears or Grand Staircase-Escalante.

“That’s just not what this was supposed to do,” he said.

Grand Staircase-Escalante was designated by President Clinton and Bears Ears was designated by President Obama. Both monuments were drastically reduced in size by President Trump, then reinstated by President Biden.

Utah promptly sued the federal government over Biden’s reversal. That case was dismissed in August 2023 by a U.S. District Judge and within days the state filed an appeal with the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Cox on Friday reiterated his belief that the case would end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I feel very confident that the Supreme Court will look at this and say presidents have not followed the Antiquities Act the way it was intended to be followed,” Cox told reporters.

But Steve Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said the governor’s interpretation of the act doesn’t mesh with the last century of precedent.

Bloch pointed to national parks like the Grand Canyon, Grand Teton and four of Utah’s Big Five — Arches, Capitol Reef, Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks — which all started as national monuments, designated by a president who used the Antiquities Act. Since 1906, the act has been used over 300 times to set aside millions of acres of land, according to the National Park Service.

“Even without arguing explicitly for a repeal, his version of what the act would authorize a president to do is simply inconsistent with how the act has been used and how the act has been upheld by courts for more than 100 years,” Bloch said. “It’s simply rewriting history to say that Congress didn’t intend to authorize the president to protect large landscapes.”

Repealing the Antiquities Act would require an act of Congress and regardless of political affiliation, public lands, including national monuments in Utah, have broad support among voters in the West.

According to Colorado College’s annual Conservation in the West poll, 83% of respondents said they supported Biden’s “30×30” initiative, which includes a push to designate new national monuments and conserve more land.

About 84% of respondents said they support creating new national parks, monuments and wildlife refuges, and designating new tribal protected areas of historic significance.

Meanwhile, a 2023 poll from Deseret News found that 42% of Utah voters support keeping Bears Ears at its current size, compared to 26% who are opposed.

“The American public supports these types of designations — Utah is a great example. Four of our five national parks started off as monuments. Nobody thinks that was a bad idea,” said Bloch.

Currently two states — Wyoming and Alaska — have exemptions carved out in the Antiquities Act that requires Congress to approve any national monument designations. Cox would like to see something like that in Utah, which he called “the pincushion for Democrats.”

“Whenever they need an environmental win, they just approve another monument in Utah and I don’t think that was ever intended,” Cox said.

Although Project 2025 spells out an ambitious conservative policy agenda, Trump has recently tried to distance himself from it. Earlier this month, he took to Truth Social, claiming he knows “nothing about Project 2025.”

“I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them,” Trump wrote.

Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, is listed as one of Project 2025’s contributors. And Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee is quoted on the 922-page initiative’s jacket, calling it a “blueprint” to “dismantle the administrative state and return power back to the states and the American people.”

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