In July 2025, US President Donald Trump approved the reduction of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by 90%, opening the land to oil and gas companies. ^[1] Patagonia joined a coalition of Indigenous and environmental groups to sue the Trump administration on Wednesday over its decision to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah. ^[2] The Trump administration shrunk each of the two Utah national monuments by about 90 percent in July, opening millions of acres to oil drilling, uranium mining, and other developments. ^[3] Gellert also said the Antiquities Act allows presidents to establish national monuments but does not give the executive authority to undo them, and that Trump's reduction is an effort to force secession of federal land to the state and allow private companies to extract natural resources, citing mining claims already filed in areas no longer part of the monuments. ^[4] Patagonia CEO Ryan Gellert wrote in a blog post that President Donald Trump's proclamations betray Tribal sovereignty and scrap years of work to create management plans for culturally significant places. ^[5]