By McKenzie Romero | Editor
It’s deja vu. In 2017, then-President Donald Trump ordered that the size of Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments be drastically cut down, triggering a series of lawsuits.
Now in 2026, again-President Trump has re-shrunk the monuments (which were restored under President Joe Biden) and opponents to the reductions are bringing back their legal challenges.
In today’s Dispatch we look at the monumental court battle building over the boundary changes, the end of the road for Utah’s “Energy Corridor” in the Four Corners area, and how federal cuts are threatening kids’ school meals.
“President Trump’s proclamations, which removed protections from countless objects of scientific and historic importance, are plainly illegal, just as they were in 2017 when he first attacked these treasured monuments.” — Heidi McIntosh, managing attorney for Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office, announcing the organization’s lawsuit over the changes to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante.
The Bears Ears buttes, namesake of the Bears Ears National Monument, are pictured on Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
By Annie Knox
New court filings from environmental groups and retailer Patagonia say President Donald Trump’s orders leave the landscapes open to hard rock mining and oil, gas and coal leases. And they note mining claims have been filed in recent weeks on lands cut out of the new boundaries.
In his first term in the White House, Trump slashed Bears Ears from roughly 1.35 million acres to roughly 228,000 acres, and Grand Staircase-Escalante from about 1.87 million acres to roughly 1 million acres. In the more dramatic cuts in July, he cut Bears Ears to about 121,000 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante to about 182,000 acres.
The Utah Department of Transportation completed construction of updates along the Energy Corridor along state Route 162 and state Route 262 in San Juan County. (Photo Courtesy of Utah Department of Transportation)
By Alixel Cabrera
Bumpy roads in a 53-mile stretch of rural San Juan County are smoother now that the Utah Department of Transportation has finished its “Energy Corridor” project. Also, motorists’ possibilities of hitting a horse or cattle during their commute are lower.
At a ribbon cutting event for the highway, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said roads in remote, sparsely populated areas may be overlooked. The state worked with the Navajo Nation for years to plan the corridor, ultimately starting construction in 2024 with a $152 budget of federal and state funds.
Elementary school kids go through the lunch line. (Photo by Marcus Constantino for West Virginia Watch)
STATELINE
By Kevin Hardy
More than 1 million American children have lost access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Now, a portion of those children could be at risk of losing free school meals — viewed as crucial supports for both childhood hunger and classroom learning.
Many schools offer free meals to all students through federal funding tied to rates of SNAP participation. The complicated federal funding formula means even a slight change in SNAP enrollment could jeopardize free meal funding for entire schools and districts.
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