Tribal advocates and conservationists are celebrating a win in their fight to protect Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. A Congressional push to fast-track rule changes for the southern Utah monument failed to pass before a key deadline.
The resolution would have thrown out the monument’s Biden-era management plan, which included input from several Native tribes. That could have opened more of its land to vehicles and energy development.
“I am happy that we have preserved the resource management plan that we spent so much time on,” said Erik Stanfield, an anthropologist with the Navajo Nation Historic Preservation Department who was involved in around 15 years of discussions between local, tribal and federal agencies that led to the monument’s existing plan.
The move to rewrite Grand Staircase’s rules was spearheaded by Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Celeste Maloy, and it would have been the first time a particular process, called the Congressional Review Act, was used to change a national monument.
In Stanfield’s view, its passage could have perpetuated a harmful game of political football.
“I'm glad that we haven't opened up another can of worms that's just going to make these things easier to throw in the trash based on who's in power,” he said. “So, I think this was a win for the stability of management planning.”
The vast monument, which is larger than the state of Delaware, includes the ancestral homelands of multiple Native tribes, according to the Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition, which has actively opposed Lee and Maloy’s efforts.
Autumn Gillard, coalition coordinator and a Southern Paiute woman descending from the Cedar Band of Paiutes, said protecting the monument is not only about preserving petroglyphs and other historic sites.
“Plants, waterways, skyscapes, animals — all of that is included in a cultural landscape,” Gillard said, “and if you lose a component of that, for tribal people, that's a component then that is missing from our cultural heritage.”
Tribal members continue to visit Grand Staircase to interact with the landscape through ceremonies and songs, she said.
“It is a place that we attend to reconnect with our theological practices,” Gillard said. “And it is very much a privilege for Indigenous people that we are able to still do that with landscapes that remain in pristine condition.”
If the Senate would have voted on Lee’s resolution within 60 in-session days of its introduction, it could have passed along party lines with a simple majority. By missing that deadline, the resolution would now require 60 votes to overcome the filibuster, which advocacy groups believe would be unlikely in a Senate with 53 Republican members.
When Lee introduced his Senate resolution earlier this year, he said the 2025 Biden plan dismissed recommendations from the state and local communities. Maloy similarly said undoing that plan would allow for more local input and reinstate multiple-use access to areas that had been effectively closed.
All of Utah’s Congressional delegation supported the joint resolution, along with Gov. Spencer Cox and the commissioners of Garfield and Kane counties. Utah political leaders have long fought against monument designations, saying they further federal government overreach in the state.
But there has been local opposition to Lee and Maloy’s proposal, too. More than 50 local business leaders and residents from towns near the monument sent a letter to Congress this spring saying the monument’s existing protections are vital to their companies and communities. A recent analysis from independent research group Headwaters Economics showed that Grand Staircase-Escalante and other national monuments boost local economies as visitation increases.
Protecting Grand Staircase also safeguards the desert region’s precious waterways, Gillard said. The Escalante River that flows through the monument feeds the struggling Colorado River. Even relatively small development for oil, gas or mining could have big impacts on the fragile ecosystem, she argued.
“It's always important to think how everything is connected and intertwined,” Gillard said. “and I think Grand Staircase is a beautiful example of this great circle of life that needs to be protected.”
Beyond affecting the landscape, Stanfield said if the Congressional resolution were to have passed, it would have signaled an erosion of the tools of democracy that are meant to preserve public places.
With Lee’s resolution stalling in the Senate, Stanfield anticipates President Donald Trump will soon issue an executive order to change the monument’s boundaries. This possibility has been looming since the 2024 election, because Trump already took that action in 2017, before President Joe Biden restored the boundaries in 2021.
So, the fight for Grand Staircase is likely far from over.
“We're going to have to keep the pressure on,” Stanfield said.
