Nearly 900,000 acres of public lands in Utah could be left in an administrative limbo unless House lawmakers strike language from the annual Interior Department appropriations bill, conservationists say.
More than 60 organizations — including the Conservation Lands Foundation, Grand Canyon Trust, Grand Staircase Escalante Partners, New Mexico Wildlife Federation, The Wilderness Society and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance — signed onto a Monday letter asking House leaders to remove a provision targeting the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument from the fiscal 2026 spending bill.
“Among the most beloved of the National Conservation Lands, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah is the first and largest national monument entrusted to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to conserve, restore, and protect,” the groups wrote in the letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).
The current spending bill would direct BLM to follow a 2020 Trump administration land-use plan for the monument in southwestern Utah.
