Tenth Circuit Opens the Courthouse Door to Statutory Ultra Vires Challenges of Presidential Antiquities Act Proclamations

1. Introduction

In Garfield County, Utah v. Trump (captioned in the district court against President Biden and later reflecting substitutions under Fed. R. App. P. 43(c)(2)), the Tenth Circuit addressed whether federal courts may review a President’s expansion of national monuments under the Antiquities Act when challengers allege the President exceeded statutory limits. The dispute arose from President Biden’s 2021 proclamations expanding Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to a combined 3.23 million acres, identifying more than 500 “objects” for protection and justifying broad boundaries by reference to landscape-level scientific study.

Plaintiffs included the State of Utah, Garfield and Kane Counties, and related officials (the “Utah Plaintiffs”), as well as individual and organizational plaintiffs (later dismissed). Defendants included the President and Interior/Agriculture officials and agencies; Tribes and environmental groups intervened in support of the proclamations.

The central issues were (i) whether sovereign immunity barred ultra vires claims challenging the proclamations as exceeding the Antiquities Act; (ii) whether APA claims challenging interim management plans were reviewable as “final agency action”; and (iii) whether certain plaintiffs had standing.

2. Summary of the Opinion

  • Ultra vires / sovereign immunity: The court held the district court used an erroneous conception of the ultra vires exception and wrongly treated the President’s proclamations as categorically unreviewable. It remanded for the district court to interpret the Antiquities Act’s substantive limits and determine whether Plaintiffs plausibly alleged the President acted beyond those limits.
  • APA claims: The court vacated dismissal of APA claims aimed at interim management plans because those interim plans were superseded by final resource management plans (published in 2025), requiring the district court to assess the effect on the APA claims on remand.
  • Standing (Individual Plaintiffs and BlueRibbon): The court affirmed their dismissal because they waived any challenge to the standing ruling by failing to raise it in their opening brief.
  • Form of dismissal: Jurisdictional dismissals must be without prejudice; the panel modified the surviving portion of the district court’s order accordingly (citing Brereton v. Bountiful City Corp.).

3. Analysis

3.1. Precedents Cited

The opinion’s doctrinal core is sovereign immunity and the ultra vires exception, framed by a line of Supreme Court and circuit precedents:

A. Sovereign immunity and ultra vires foundations

  • Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Cmty. and Dep't of Agric. Rural Dev. Rural Hous. Serv. v. Kirtz: reaffirm sovereign immunity as a baseline rule, waivable only by Congress.
  • Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v. Halderman: executive power is bounded by statute and the Constitution.
  • Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Com. Corp. and the Tenth Circuit’s synthesis in Wyoming v. United States: distinguish between (i) allegations that an officer acted unlawfully within delegated authority (typically barred), and (ii) allegations the officer acted outside delegated authority (ultra vires), in which case the act is not “action of the sovereign” for immunity purposes.
  • United Tribe of Shawnee Indians v. United States: reinforces the requirement that the claim be that the officer was not exercising delegated sovereign power.

B. Discretion committed to the President—distinguishing reviewable limits from unreviewable discretion

  • Dalton v. Specter and United States v. George S. Bush & Co.: stand for the proposition that judicial review is unavailable where Congress has granted unfettered presidential discretion such that “no question of law is raised.”
  • Martin v. Mott and Dakota Cent. Tel. Co. v. State of S. Dakota ex rel. Payne: illustrate contexts (military emergencies/war powers) where statutory structure and constitutional role commit determinations to the President.
  • Chambers of Com. of U.S. v. Reich: used to reject the “untenable” view that the President can evade all statutory limits merely by asserting he acts under a statute.
  • Mountain States Legal Found. v. Bush (D.C. Circuit) and Murphy Co. v. Biden (Ninth Circuit): both cited to support reviewability where statutes impose “discernible limits” on presidential discretion, and to support the availability of statutory ultra vires review.

C. Antiquities Act decisions signaling judicial competence to interpret statutory limits

  • Cameron v. United States: the Supreme Court assessed whether the Grand Canyon was an “object[] of historic or scientific interest,” supporting the majority’s view that courts can interpret that statutory phrase.
  • Cappaert v. United States: the Court considered whether reserving a pool was authorized because it was an “object[] of historic or scientific interest.”
  • United States v. California: part of the majority’s point that Antiquities Act proclamations are not categorically beyond judicial examination.
  • Mass. Lobstermen's Ass'n v. Ross: cited as an example of courts engaging the Act’s terms in litigation.

D. Modern interpretive backdrop and presumption of review

  • Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo: invoked for the proposition that ambiguity does not equal delegation of law-interpreting power; courts still “say what the law is.”
  • Kucana v. Holder: supports a presumption favoring judicial review absent “clear and convincing evidence” Congress intended to preclude it.
  • Patchak v. Zinke: used to emphasize the judiciary’s duty to interpret and apply the law in cases.

E. Ultra vires as “rare” (Kyne-style) and the remand’s open question

  • Nuclear Regul. Comm'n v. Texas, Leedom v. Kyne, Ry. Clerks v. Ass'n for Benefit of Non-contract Emps., and Boire v. Greyhound Corp.: the panel acknowledged the Supreme Court’s caution that some forms of ultra vires review (especially as an end-run around statutory review schemes) are “strictly limited,” but declined to decide whether Plaintiffs must satisfy the Kyne standard in this presidential/statutory setting.

3.2. Legal Reasoning

The majority’s reasoning proceeds in three steps.

Step 1: Correcting the district court’s misframing of ultra vires

The district court required Plaintiffs to allege that the President lacked authority to create monuments at all. The Tenth Circuit rejected this as a category mistake: ultra vires can be pleaded where the official has authority in general but allegedly exceeded statutory limits in the particular exercise (e.g., designating non-qualifying “objects” or reserving more than the “smallest area compatible”).

Step 2: Distinguishing discretionary judgment from enforceable statutory limits

Relying on Dalton v. Specter and similar cases, Defendants argued that Antiquities Act decisions are committed to presidential discretion and thus unreviewable. The court disagreed because the Antiquities Act contains what it called “discernible limits”: the proclamation must concern certain categories (“historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest”) and land reservations “shall” be confined to the “smallest area compatible” with proper care and management.

The panel emphasized that the discretion clause (“in the President’s discretion”) modifies the power to “declare” in § 320301(a), while § 320301(b)’s “smallest area compatible” limit appears without an express discretion clause and uses mandatory language. The court treated these textual features as supporting judicial enforceability of statutory boundaries, even if substantial deference may ultimately apply.

Step 3: Preserving merits questions for remand

Critically, the court did not decide whether President Biden actually exceeded the Act; it held only that sovereign immunity was not a categorical bar based on the district court’s reasoning. It remanded for the district court to interpret the Act’s limiting phrases and then determine whether Plaintiffs plausibly alleged ultra vires conduct—and also to consider whether a heightened Kyne-style ultra vires standard applies.

3.3. Impact

  • Antiquities Act litigation in the Tenth Circuit becomes meaningfully justiciable: Challengers can proceed past threshold sovereign-immunity reasoning where they plausibly claim a proclamation exceeds statutory limits that are “discernible” in the text.
  • Sharper line between “policy disagreement” and “statutory boundary” disputes: The opinion signals courts should not “second-guess” discretionary choices within authority, but should be willing to interpret and enforce statutory constraints on what may be designated and how much land may be reserved.
  • Remedial complexity: The panel noted uncertainty whether injunctive relief can run directly against the President in statutory ultra vires cases, hinting remedies may need to run against implementing agencies—an issue likely to shape future pleading strategy.
  • Procedural discipline in large public-lands cases: The standing waiver holding (for Individual Plaintiffs and BlueRibbon) underscores that high-stakes monument cases can turn on appellate briefing rigor, not just merits.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

Sovereign immunity
The default rule that the United States (and officials acting for it) cannot be sued unless Congress allows it.
Ultra vires
A narrow path around sovereign immunity: if an official acts beyond the power Congress gave, the act is treated as not truly the sovereign’s act, allowing a court to consider relief.
“Committed to discretion” (nonreviewability)
Some statutes give the President such open-ended judgment that there is no legal standard for courts to apply. Here, the court said the Antiquities Act contains textual limits that courts can interpret.
“Smallest area compatible”
The Act allows reserving land only to the extent necessary to care for and manage the protected objects. The panel held this phrase is not automatically insulated from judicial interpretation merely because it requires judgment.
APA “final agency action” and mootness
The APA typically permits review only of definitive, consummated agency decisions. Because the interim plans were replaced by final plans, the appeal over interim-plan finality became overtaken by events, requiring a remand.
Standing (and waiver)
Standing requires a concrete injury traceable to the defendant and redressable by the court. Even if a party might have standing, it can lose the issue by failing to properly raise it on appeal (waiver).

5. Conclusion

Garfield County, Utah v. Trump establishes (within the Tenth Circuit) that sovereign immunity does not categorically bar statutory ultra vires challenges to Antiquities Act proclamations where plaintiffs invoke the Act’s “discernible limits,” including the “objects of historic or scientific interest” requirement and the “smallest area compatible” constraint. The court did not decide whether the 2021 monument expansions were lawful; instead, it corrected the jurisdictional framing, vacated the APA dismissal in light of superseding final plans, affirmed dismissal of certain plaintiffs for appellate waiver, and remanded for statutory interpretation and plausibility analysis.