The Biden administration won its bid to keep a pair of legal challenges over then-President Donald Trump’s shrinking of two Utah national monuments alive — creating a potential hurdle for his incoming administration, which is expected to once again target protections for public lands.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee, ruled Monday to continue to stay two parallel lawsuits centered on the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Bears Ears National Monument.
Utah state and local officials had asked Chutkan to reactivate the cases and then dismiss the complaints as moot.
Both lawsuits challenge Trump’s decision in 2017 to erase monument status for more than 2 million acres of public lands, which President Joe Biden reversed in late 2021.
