A wide-ranging conversation about one of the most contested and celebrated landscapes in the American West

In this episode, Bill and Anders are joined by Autumn Gillard, coordinator for the Grand Staircase Intertribal Coalition, and Steve Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), for a wide-ranging conversation about one of the most contested and celebrated landscapes in the American West: Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Autumn brings a Southern Paiute perspective to the work, rooted in personal connection to ancestral land and galvanized by witnessing the vandalism of irreplaceable cultural sites. Steve brings 30 years of legal and conservation advocacy, including direct involvement in the monument’s establishment in 1996 and the subsequent legal battles that followed.

The conversation traces the full arc of the monument’s history, from early twentieth-century preservation visions to the coal mining threat that catalyzed the 1996 designation, through the Trump administration’s 2017 reduction of the monument boundaries and the Biden administration’s 2021 restoration. Steve and Autumn explain how the collaborative management planning process that followed the restoration became an opportunity to elevate tribal voices in unprecedented ways, with coalition members sitting alongside elders without smartphones to hand-transcribe their knowledge into formal public comments. That process produced a management plan that now faces a new and potentially permanent threat: weaponized use of the Congressional Review Act by Representative Celeste Maloy and Senator Mike Lee.

What emerges from this conversation is not despair but resolve. Autumn speaks with quiet power about carrying the weight of ancestral obligation and drawing strength from the land itself, preparing not for today’s outcome but for seven generations forward. Steve lays out the legal landscape with clarity and urgency, while both guests leave listeners with a simple, actionable message: your voice matters, and raising it, whether by calling Congress or simply visiting the monument, is its own form of advocacy.

In this episode:

• The landscape of Grand Staircase-Escalante: Steve describes nearly two million acres of red rock canyons, towering spires, dark skies, and backpacking routes where you may not see another person for days.
• Autumn Gillard’s path to the work: A Southern Paiute woman born and raised in Utah, Autumn describes how a weekend visit to the monument and a devastating encounter with vandalized petroglyphs drew her into a career protecting ancestral lands.
• Indigenous connections to the monument: Autumn explains how the landscape holds songs, ceremonies, migration paths, and pilgrimages for multiple tribal nations, and why the land itself, not just discrete sites, must be understood as culturally significant.
• The 1996 designation and what made it possible: Steve traces the campaign to protect Grand Staircase from a proposed Dutch coal mine on the Kaiparowits Plateau and the landmark use of the Antiquities Act by President Clinton.
• The Trump reduction and its on-the-ground consequences: Signs removed, research permits revoked, fossils pocketed, vehicles driven off-route, and critical scientific monitoring of the Escalante River and grazing impacts interrupted or abandoned.
• Biden’s restoration and the collaborative planning process: How tribal nations seized the moment to build the Grand Staircase Intertribal Coalition, engage elders in person, and help craft a management plan that centers indigenous co-stewardship.
• The Congressional Review Act and its novel weaponization: Steve explains how Congress has, for the first time, used this obscure legislative tool to undo land management plans, with six plans already eliminated and Grand Staircase directly in the crosshairs.
• Local communities and the monument economy: Research from Headwaters Economics confirms that gateway towns like Kanab, Escalante, and Boulder have built more durable, resilient economies in the monument’s shadow, countering anti-monument arguments rooted in ideology rather than data.
• Carrying the weight of seven generations: Autumn reflects on what it means, spiritually and culturally, to carry ancestral burden into legislative fights, and where she finds the strength to keep going.
• What listeners can do right now: SUWA’s website offers a simple tool to contact your member of Congress directly; visiting the monument and supporting local gateway communities also counts as advocacy.

Links & Resources

Organizations & Initiatives:

• Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA): Utah-based conservation organization with approximately 12,000 members that has been central to Grand Staircase-Escalante’s protection since its designation in 1996. 
  • SUWA on Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky
• Grand Staircase Intertribal Coalition: A coalition of tribal nations with ancestral ties to the monument that organized to participate in the Biden-era management planning process and continues to advocate for indigenous co-stewardship.
  • Grand Staircase Intertribal Coalition on Instagram and Facebook
• Headwaters Economics: A Montana-based research organization whose studies on gateway community economies around the monument were cited to document the durable economic benefits of the monument designation.

Places & Landscapes:

• Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument: A nearly two-million-acre BLM-managed monument in southern Utah, established in 1996 by President Clinton, encompassing red rock canyons, paleontological resources, and landscapes sacred to multiple tribal nations.
• Kaiparowits Plateau: The southern flank of the monument where a Dutch company proposed an expansive coal mine in the 1990s, a threat that galvanized the campaign for monument designation.
• Escalante River: A river within the monument that feeds into the Colorado River system; disrupted scientific monitoring of the river’s health under the Trump-era reduction was cited as a lasting consequence.
• Pipe Spring National Monument: Located on the Kaibab Paiute Reservation, where Autumn first began working in public lands and learning about Grand Staircase’s significance to Southern Paiute culture.
• Bears Ears National Monument: An adjacent Utah monument that faced similar reductions under Trump and whose protection is intertwined with the broader fight over Antiquities Act authority.
• Gateway Communities (Kanab, Escalante, Boulder, Cannonville, Tropic, Torrey): Towns surrounding the monument that have developed more resilient economies over the 30-year arc of the monument’s existence.

Government & Policy:

• Antiquities Act (1906): The law Congress passed delegating authority to the president to establish national monuments; Steve describes it as a one-way ratchet used only to establish monuments, not to reduce them.
• Federal Land Policy and Management Act (1976): Landmark legislation establishing a federal policy of retaining and conserving public lands for current and future generations rather than selling them off.
• America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act: Legislation championed by SUWA that would designate approximately 8.5 million acres of BLM-managed land in Utah as congressionally designated wilderness.
• Congressional Review Act (1996): A law originally intended to allow Congress to review agency rules from a prior administration; this Republican-led Congress has weaponized it for the first time to undo land management plans, with six plans already eliminated and Grand Staircase directly targeted.
• Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (119th Congress): Resolutions introduced by Representative Celeste Maloy and Senator Mike Lee to undo the Grand Staircase management plan; if passed and signed, they would prohibit BLM from implementing a substantially similar plan in the future.

People Mentioned:

• Harold Ickes: FDR’s Secretary of the Interior who articulated an early vision for protecting southern Utah’s red rock landscape for all Americans.
• President Bill Clinton: Established Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996 using Antiquities Act authority.
• President Joe Biden: Issued a proclamation in October 2021 restoring the monument boundaries and producing a stronger, more culturally inclusive proclamation language.
• Representative Celeste Maloy (Utah): Co-sponsor of the joint resolution of disapproval targeting the Grand Staircase management plan and previously involved in a proposed public land sell-off.
• Senator Mike Lee (Utah): Co-sponsor of the resolution and a vocal opponent of federal public land ownership.

Autumn Gillard is the Coordinator for the Grand Staircase Escalante Intertribal Coalition.

Stephen Bloch is an attorney and legal director at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). SUWA is Utah’s largest conservation organization. Formed in 1983, its mission is the preservation of the outstanding wilderness at the heart of the Colorado Plateau, and the management of these lands in their natural state for the benefit of all Americans. Steve has worked at SUWA since 1999. He and his family live in Salt Lake City.

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