With President-elect Donald Trump about to take office, America’s national monuments are once again in danger. Project 2025, the policy handbook written by former Trump officials, clearly lays out a plan to roll back national monument protections and eliminate the Antiquities Act, which presidents from both parties have used for over a century to protect some of America’s most iconic landscapes.

This would infuriate Western voters. Year after year, voters across the political spectrum say they want more emphasis placed on conservation than energy production, along with more protections for public lands. Specifically, they support presidents of both parties using the Antiquities Act to protect special landscapes as national monuments.

“America’s parks, monuments, forests, and public lands are universally popular, regardless of political party,” said Jennifer Rokala, executive director at the Center for Western Priorities in a statement following the 2024 election. “If President-elect Trump and his administration try to sell off public lands, open lands to destruction, or put corporate profits ahead of public access, they will be met with swift resistance across the political spectrum.”

Despite widespread political divides, Americans can agree on one thing — they want their public lands to remain protected for future generations, and they won’t appreciate the assault on public lands likely to come in the next administration.

We’ve been here before

Trump’s position on national monuments is no mystery. Early in his first term, Trump attempted to illegally reduce the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, a decision largely motivated by oil and gas, coal, and uranium interests. This move was wildly unpopular at the time. In 2017, the Center for Western Priorities conducted two analyses that found a near-unanimous majority of Americans supported national monuments and disagreed with Trump’s move to shrink them.

The first analysis took place at the end of a 15-day public comment period on the designation of Bears Ears National Monument. Out of a representative sample of the roughly 90,000 comments submitted to regulations.gov, 96 percent expressed support for national monument designations, while three percent expressed opposition to monument designations. Roughly half of the comments submitted refer specifically to Bears Ears National Monument, with a similar 97-to-3 ratio in support among those comments.

96 percent of comments submitted to regulations.gov during the Bears Ears National Monument 15-day public comment period expressed support for national monument designations. Center for Western Priorities, 2017

A few months later, CWP conducted another analysis in response to the Trump administration’s review of 21 years of national monument designations. The analysis of over 650,000 comments posted to regulations.gov found that 98 percent of comments expressed support for keeping or expanding national monument designations. Just one percent requested Trump attempt to shrink or erase monument boundaries. The analysis also identified approximately 4,800 comments from self-identified Utah residents. Of those Utahns, a random sample revealed 88 percent supported keeping monument status for Bears Ears or Grand Staircase–Escalante national monuments.

“America has spoken loud and clear: protect and enhance national monuments, don’t eliminate them,” Center for Western Priorities executive director Jennifer Rokala said at the time.

98 percent of comments submitted during a 60-day public comment period for the Trump/Zinke national monument review supported keeping or expanding national monument designations. 88 percent of Utah commenters supported keeping monument status for Bears Ears or Grand Staircase–Escalante national monuments. Center for Western Priorities, 2017

Despite the overwhelming support for national monuments received during the comment period, the Trump administration attempted to remove protections from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments and reduce their size by approximately two million acres. This decision was predictably unpopular as shown by the 2018 Conservation in the West poll from Colorado College, which found that majorities in every Western state — and 66 percent overall — viewed the Trump administration’s decision to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments as a bad idea.

This attempted reduction was immediately challenged on the basis that presidents cannot legally shrink national monuments once they’re designated. However, the lawsuit never made it to court, and the attempted reduction did not succeed because President Biden restored protections for the monuments after he took office in 2021. Since this restoration, a move supported by the majority of Utah voters, Tribes and federal land managers have partnered to develop a historic co-management agreement and management plan for the monument. Legal scholars say it is unlikely that Trump’s reductions would have survived a court challenge — every previous challenge to a president’s authority under the Antiquities Act has failed at the U.S. Supreme Court and in lower courts.

Still, with Trump returning to office, America’s national monuments and public lands are once again under threat. Spectacular landscapes like Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument and Arizona’s Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni — Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument are in the crosshairs of the incoming Trump administration, as are Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. And with Project 2025’s outline for attacks on the Antiquities Act, future public land conservation is also at stake.

President Joe Biden signs a proclamation establishing the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni — Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument on Tuesday, August 8, 2023. White House/Oliver Contreras

National monuments are popular

Support for national monuments isn’t new. National monuments are consistently and overwhelmingly popular with Western voters regardless of political party. Again and again, polls show that voters in Western states agree with presidents’ use of the Antiquities Act to protect landscapes as national monuments and support local and Tribally-led proposals for new national monuments.

Colorado College’s annual Conservation in the West poll has been asking Western voters about public lands issues since 2011 and consistently finds overwhelming support for national monuments. In 2024, the poll found that 85 percent of Westerners support creating new national parks, national monuments, national wildlife refuges, and Tribal protected areas to protect historic sites or areas for outdoor recreation. By contrast, only 27 percent support removing protections on some areas of existing national public lands, particularly national monuments, to allow more drilling, mining, and other development. More specifically, the 2023 poll found that an overwhelming 84 percent of Western voters were in favor of presidents using their authority to designate national monuments.

The Center for Western Priorities’ 2023 Winning the West poll found similar results, with 70 percent of voters in three Western states supporting the government doing more to create and protect national monuments on public lands, and over two-thirds in support of President Biden using his executive authority to designate national monuments.

National monuments have always had strong support among voters in the states where new national monuments have been proposed and designated in recent years. In 2023, the Conservation in the West poll found that 83 percent of Nevadans supported the proposal for what became Avi Kwa Ame National Monument.

In Arizona, both the Winning the West poll and a 2023 poll from the Grand Canyon Trust found that over 75 percent of Arizona voters supported the proposal to designate Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni as a national monument. An updated Arizona poll from the Grand Canyon Trust released this month found that support for Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni National Monument has grown since its designation. In 2025, 80 percent of Arizona voters support the monument, including 68 percent of Republicans, 81 percent of Independents, and 91 percent of Democrats.

In Utah, the 2016 Conservation in the West poll asked voters in the state about the proposal for what soon became Bears Ears National Monument and found that two-thirds of respondents supported that proposal. The same poll also asked about Clinton-era national monuments including Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which were controversial at the time, and found they now have overwhelming support. New polling from the Grand Canyon Trust surveyed Utah voters in December 2024 and found that 71 percent of Utah voters now support Bears Ears National Monument, and 74 percent support Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The survey also demonstrated that 75 percent of respondents support the president’s ability to designate national monuments using the Antiquities Act.

All in all, Westerners hold national monuments in incredibly high regard. In 2018, 82 percent described them as helping nearby economies, 86 percent as national treasures, 90 percent as important places to be conserved for future generations, 90 percent as places to learn about America’s history and heritage, and 95 percent as places they want their children to see someday.

Following the announcement of Trump’s attempt to shrink national monuments during his first term, Western voter approval for the administration’s handling of issues related to land, water, and wildlife was just 38 percent. Should Trump continue with his anti-public lands agenda, the results will be the same. We know what Western voters want: public lands protected for future generations.