Utah Republican Governor Opposes Project 2025 Call to Repeal Antiquities Act

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox has reservations about the way the federal government manages its public lands in the state. But he believes the Antiquities Act, which allows the president to designate national monuments without congressional approval, should remain in place.

That flies in the face of the conservative Project 2025 initiative, which calls for a repeal of the law, which was created in 1906 and used to protect some of America’s most iconic public lands.

“I’m not in favor of a full 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 as intended.”

Project 2025, published by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, is a manifesto that outlines the various policies a new Republican administration could implement. It touches on topics such as immigration, defense, regulation, the environment and the economy.

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

Cox did not advocate for repeal, but he did echo the sentiments of Project 2025. He told reporters that he disagrees with “large-scale, multimillion-acre deployments” — including national monuments like Bears Ears or Grand Staircase-Escalante.

“That’s just not the intention,” he said.

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

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

“I have every confidence that the Supreme Court will look at this and say that presidents have not followed the Antiquities Act as intended,” Cox told reporters.

However, Steve Bloch, legal director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said the governor’s interpretation of the law is inconsistent with precedents set in the last century.

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

“Even without explicitly advocating for a repeal, his version of what the law would authorize a president to do is simply inconsistent with how the law has been used and how the law has been upheld by the courts for over 100 years,” Bloch said. “It’s simply rewriting history to say that Congress did not intend for the president to be authorized to protect large landscapes.”

Repeal of the Antiquities Act would require an act of Congress. Regardless of political leanings, public lands, including national monuments in Utah, enjoy broad support among voters across 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 preserve more land.

About 84% of respondents indicated they supported the creation of new national parks, monuments and wildlife refuges and the designation of new protected tribal areas of historical significance.

A 2023 Deseret News poll found that 42% of Utah voters favor keeping Bears Ears at its current size, compared to 26% who oppose it.

“The American public supports these kinds of designations — Utah is a good example. Four of our five national parks started out as monuments. Nobody thinks that’s a bad idea,” Bloch said.

Currently, two states — Wyoming and Alaska — have exemptions in the Antiquities Act that require Congress to approve all national monuments. Cox would like to see something similar in Utah, which he called “the pincushion for Democrats.”

“Every time they need an environmental victory, they just approve a new monument in Utah, and I don’t think that was ever the intention,” Cox said.

While Project 2025 outlines an ambitious conservative policy agenda, Trump has recently attempted to distance himself from the agenda. Earlier this month, he took to Truth Social and claimed that he “knows nothing about Project 2025.”

“I have no idea who’s behind this. I don’t agree with some of the things they say and some of the things they say are just ridiculous and horrible. Whatever they do, I wish them luck, but I had nothing to do with it,” Trump wrote.

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

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. For questions, please contact Editor McKenzie Romero: [email protected]. Follow Utah News Dispatch on Facebook and X.