Effort to Repeal Grand Staircase-Escalante Management Plan Fails in Congress

WASHINGTON, DC — An effort led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-UT-02) to repeal the Bureau of Land Management's management plan for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument has failed. The Congressional Review Act gave the Senate 60 legislative days to advance the resolution with a simple majority, and that window closed this week without a vote, leaving the measure subject to a 60-vote filibuster its supporters lack the votes to overcome.

Had it succeeded, the resolution would have voided the plan that governs recreation, grazing, Tribal consultation, and dark sky protections across the 1.87-million-acre monument, and barred BLM from ever issuing a "substantially similar" plan in its place.

Following is a statement from Bobby McEnaney, director of land conservation at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):

“Grand Staircase-Escalante's protections are still standing today because people would not let them fall. This was never really about land management. It was an attempt to make it easier to dismantle every national monument in the country, and that threat has not gone anywhere. Tribes, local communities, and voters saw this attack for what it was and spoke up. We owe it to them, and to the generations who will inherit these lands, to stay in this fight for as long as it takes.”

Background:

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was established in 1996 and protects some of the most scientifically and culturally significant landscapes on the Colorado Plateau, including ancestral Tribal sites, world-class paleontological resources, and habitat for imperiled wildlife. The current management plan was finalized by BLM in 2024 after extensive consultation with Tribal Nations, the State of Utah, local governments, ranchers, outfitters, and the public.

Three in four Utah voters, including a majority of Republicans, support keeping Grand Staircase-Escalante as a national monument.

The resolution relied on a novel and contested theory, advanced through non-binding Government Accountability Office opinions, that BLM land management plans qualify as "rules" subject to the Congressional Review Act. BLM has long maintained they are not, and neither the Forest Service nor the National Park Service has submitted its land management plans to Congress under the statute. GAO issued its opinion on the Grand Staircase-Escalante plan on January 15, 2026, and Congress has used the same theory to overturn seven previously finalized land management decisions this year.

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NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Established in 1970, NRDC uses science, policy, law and people power to confront the climate crisis, protect public health and safeguard nature. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Beijing and Delhi (an office of NRDC India Pvt. Ltd).