On June 23, 2026, a Tenth Circuit panel remanded to the district court a case challenging presidential authority to designate Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments under the Antiquities Act for reconsideration on the merits.[1] The Tenth Circuit held the district court had erred in dismissing the plaintiffs’ claims. While the Tenth Circuit declined to rule on the merits of the plaintiffs’ argument that the president exceeded his Antiquities Act authority in designating the monuments, it directed the district court to “interpret the scope of the Antiquities Act’s limitations in the first instance and decide whether Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that the President’s actions exceeded those limits.” If the district court determines that the challengers in this case have alleged such a claim, it would be the first time that a court rejects a president’s reservation of land under the Antiquities Act.
This litigation stems from President Biden’s restoration and expansion of the Bears Ears[2] and Grand Staircase-Escalante[3] National Monuments using the president’s Antiquities Act[4] authority, following the first Trump administration’s drastic shrinking of the size of each of the monuments. The Antiquities Act allows presidents to use their “discretion” to “declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated on land owned or controlled by the Federal Government to be national monuments.”[5] The Act also directs that the land reserved “shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”[6]
Plaintiffs including the State of Utah, two Utah counties, an offroad vehicle coalition, and individuals filed two challenges claiming these designations exceeded the president’s Antiquities Act authority, which were consolidated by the district court. The plaintiffs brought an ultra vires claim, arguing that in expanding the monuments, President Biden acted outside the authority Congress delegated to him. Specifically, they contended that the president designated objects including plants and animals that are not “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest” as part of the national monuments and that he ignored the Act’s requirement that to reserve only the “smallest area compatible” with protecting the objects identified in the monument designation. In addition, the plaintiffs argued that the several agencies violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in implementing the Proclamations because the President exceeded his authority under the Antiquities Act.
The Department of Justice under the Biden administration and intervenors, including four Tribal nations — Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Pueblo of Zuni, and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe — and environmental organizations, argued that sovereign immunity forbade suit against the president and that the challengers’ APA challenges were not ripe because the agencies’ interim regulations were not final agency action.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Utah dismissed the case in 2023, holding that the court lacked jurisdiction and otherwise could not adjudicate plaintiffs’ claims.[7] The court held that the challenges to the Proclamations were unreviewable because plaintiffs brought statutory rather than constitutional challenges, the APA did not waive sovereign immunity for the president, and the monument designations did not fall into the ultra vires exception to sovereign immunity because plaintiffs did not argue that the president lacked authority to designate monuments, just that he misused that authority.[8]
In June 2026, the Tenth Circuit affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded the case to the district court, sending the case back to the district court to review whether the president’s designations exceeded his Antiquities Act authority. The majority stated that “[a]lthough we decline to go so far as to hold Plaintiffs plausibly alleged an ultra vires claim, we conclude that the district court erred in dismissing Plaintiffs’ claims. The district court based its determinations on a flawed view of sovereign immunity’s ultra vires exception, and we must correct those errors.” The majority explained that to bypass sovereign immunity, a plaintiff must not allege merely that an official acted illegally in using the powers Congress gave him, but rather that “in committing the alleged wrong, he was not exercising the powers delegated to him by the sovereign.” The Tenth Circuit concluded that the district court had erred in interpreting plaintiffs as “challeng[ing] presidential actions committed to the President’s discretion” and rejecting the possibility that plaintiffs had instead alleged that the president acted wholly outside the scope of discretion Congress had given him in the Antiquities Act. Accordingly, the Tenth Circuit concluded that the district court improperly held the claim barred by sovereign immunity. The court of appeals did not determine that plaintiffs certainly did plausibly allege an ultra vires claim, nor did it reach the merits: whether the president actually exceeded the Act’s grant of authority on either the type of objects protected or the size of the reservation.
The Tenth Circuit also vacated and remanded the dismissal of the plaintiffs’ APA claims against the agency defendants due to subsequent agency action.
The dissenting judge agreed the district court erred by treating the president as immune from judicial review, but argued the majority’s position swung too far the other way, writing that “the majority seems to be teeing up the district court to be the first court, ever, to strike down a national monument proclamation, in whole or in part.” The dissent notes that it would have dismissed the case as the district court did, though for different reasons.
On remand, the district court will have to, as the Tenth Circuit majority directed in its opinion, first determine if plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged an ultra vires claim, and, if so, define the “Antiquities Act’s limitations” to determine if the president’s designations exceeded that authority. The Tenth Circuit stated that the district court will have to “interpret the scope of ‘historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest’ and whether Plaintiff plausibly alleged that the President acted ultra vires by declaring as monuments objects outside of that scope,” in addition to interpreting the “smallest area compatible” provision and whether the president acted consistent with that directive.
As the district court takes this case back up on remand, we will be watching to see whether the government defends the case on the merits. As mentioned above, President Trump decreased the size of the two monuments by proclamation during his first term, and this administration has in several instances ceased defending actions by the prior administration, including in some instances asking courts to effect policy change normally accomplished through other processes.[9] It will be important to watch how the current administration’s interest in expanding the bounds of executive authority plays with its effort to loosen protections for public lands and open them to extractive industries.
Follow EELP’s National Monuments regulatory tracker for developments.
[1] Garfield County v. Trump, Nos. 23-4106 & 23-4107 (10th Cir. Jun. 23, 2026).
[2] Proclamation No. 10285, 86 Fed. Reg. 57335 (Oct. 8, 2021).
[3] Proclamation 10286, 86 Fed. Reg. 57349 (Oct. 15, 2021).
[4] 54 USC §§ 320301-320303.
[5] 54 USC § 320301(a).
[6] Id. § 320301(b).
[7] Garfield County v. Biden, 4:22-cv-00059 (D. Utah 2023).
[8] The district court also held that certain plaintiffs lacked standing; the Tenth Circuit determined that those plaintiffs forfeited any argument about standing by failing to raise it in their opening brief on appeal.
[9] Erika Kranz, A Department Untethered: The Erosion of DOJ Settlement Norms and Implications for Environmental Law (June 2026), https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/a-department-untethered-the-erosion-of-doj-settlement-norms-and-implications-for-environmental-law/.