December 2, 2025 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SUWA Statement on Closed-door Meeting re: National Parks and the State of Utah – 12.2.25
Utah politicians are working towards a future where National Parks are overrun by off-road vehicles and out-of-control visitation
Contacts:
Grant Stevens, Communications Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (319) 427-0260; grant@suwa.org
Salt Lake City, UT – Yesterday, during a closed-door meeting, the State of Utah laid out its latest effort to undermine and dismantle the nation’s public lands system: a plan for the State to have significant influence over national parks, especially in the area of visitor use, management, and new development. The “workshop” appears to have been specifically tailored to avoid Utah’s open meetings laws by inviting numerous county commissioners and legislators, but at numbers right below the threshold that would have required the meeting be open to the public. Below is a statement from SUWA Wildlands Director Neal Clark and additional information.
“The secrecy around yesterday’s meeting says it all. Instead of an open and transparent conversation, the State of Utah ran a closed-door event where it unveiled its management priorities and direction for the NPS units in Utah,” said Neal Clark, Wildlands Director at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “Parks like Zion, Arches, and Bryce Canyon are the envy of the world, but all Utah politicians can imagine is a future where these parks and others are overrun by off-road vehicles and out-of-control visitation. Americans should see the State’s actions for what they clearly are: a power grab to gain control of and undermine the National Parks and federal public lands in Utah. SUWA will continue its work, undeterred, to protect Utah’s redrock country for current and future generations.”
During the meeting, the Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office (PLPCO), along with some county commissioners, presented a laundry list of grievances and demands for each of the parks, including:
- allowing off-highway vehicles (OHVs) in Capitol Reef and Canyonlands National Parks
- eliminating timed-entry at Zion and Arches National Parks
- eliminating other permit systems and increasing visitation numbers to all parks
- paving a stretch of the Burr Trail, a backcountry road that winds between the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Capitol Reef National Park, and the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Utah politicians have been scheming to pave the Burr Trail for more than 50 years.
Additional information:
The meeting was convened and led by the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the State of Utah; information regarding the purpose of the meeting and why NPS leadership from throughout Utah and Arizona (Grand Canyon National Park) was summoned to Salt Lake was scant. An agenda can be found here. The meeting was primarily an airing of grievances by the State and counties, and it doesn’t appear that career NPS superintendents and staff were given any heads-up about the issues discussed.
The tone and tenor of the meeting is entirely consistent with recent efforts by both the Utah legislature and Utah’s congressional delegation to push for state management (if not outright ownership) of federal public lands. These are politicians who fundamentally reject the notion of federal public lands that are owned by all Americans and managed on their behalf by the federal government. Instead, these politicians want to seize control of public lands and be the ones calling the shots across Utah’s redrock country for the benefit of a few local interests, rather than the American people.
Based on an invitation list SUWA reviewed, the meeting included:
- Deputy Secretary of the Interior Karen Budd-Falen and other political appointees from the Department of the Interior (DOI)
- the State of Utah (Lieutenant Governor Deidra Henerson, officials in Governor Spencer Cox’s office, the Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office [PLPCO], and more)
- Staff from Utah’s Congressional delegation (Senators Lee & Curtis, Representatives Owens, Moore, Maloy, and Kennedy)
- Utah state legislators and commissioners from several counties where national parks are located (Grand, San Juan, Wayne, Garfield, Kane, and Washington)
- Superintendents and/or leadership from most of the National Parks in Utah were in attendance, but did not have a speaking role
- Grand Canyon National Park’s Deputy Superintendent. Grand Canyon National Park is located in Arizona, not Utah
- NPS officials from the Regional office in Colorado
The National Park Service (NPS) manages 13 units in Utah. Those on the agenda for the meeting included: Zion, Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, and Capitol Reef National Parks, as well as Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.
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The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters from around the country dedicated to protecting America’s redrock wilderness. From offices in Moab, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC, our team of professionals defends the redrock, organizes support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, and stewards this world-renowned landscape. Learn more at www.suwa.org.
