Latest news with #Chuckwalla
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
DOJ argues Trump may cancel Biden-era national monuments
The Justice Department says President Donald Trump has the right to abolish national monuments established by former President Joe Biden at the request of Native American tribes. In the final days of his presidency, Biden established the Chuckwalla National Monument and the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument to protect hundreds of thousands of acres of land in California. According to Reuters, the Chuckwalla National Monument protects over 624,000 acres, while the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument protects 224,000 acres. Trump Doj Investigating Biden-era Pardons Amid Concerns Over State Of Mind The monuments could lose their status after a Trump DOJ legal opinion reversed a 1938 determination that presidents did not have the power to abolish monuments designated by previous presidents under the Antiquities Act of 1906. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora Pettit argued in the opinion that "for the Antiquities Act, the power to declare carries with it the power to revoke." In his first term, Trump reduced the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments in Utah, according to the Associated Press. The outlet noted that Trump claimed the monuments were a "massive land grab." However, Biden later restored them during his term in office. Read On The Fox News App Biden Says He's Been Carrying Out 'Most Aggressive Climate Agenda' In History As He Designates Ca Monuments The DOJ's opinion, which was released on Tuesday, has already drawn backlash as Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., slammed the Trump administration. "At Donald Trump's order, his Justice Department is attempting to clear a path to erase national monuments," said Heinrich, who serves as the ranking member of the Senate Natural Resources Committee. "Here's what they don't understand: Our national monuments are about who we are. They tell the story of our ancestors, support jobs and our rural economies, and connect Americans to our history and the land itself. No president can erase that." Heinrich also vowed to oppose Republican efforts "to rip away our national monuments." In the legal opinion, Pettit wrote that Biden's designation of the new monuments was part of a larger effort to create an environmental legacy for himself. She also appeared to discredit Biden's reasons for designating the sites as national monuments, including the creation of more places for outdoor recreational activities, like biking, hiking, hunting and camping. "Such activities are entirely expected in a park, but they are wholly unrelated to (if not outright incompatible with) the protection of scientific or historical monuments," Pettit wrote. There is no clear indication if or when Trump would revoke the status of the two sites established by Biden—or the status of any other monuments. However, according to Reuters, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields spoke about the need to "liberate our federal lands and waters to oil, gas, coal, geothermal, and mineral leasing" when asked about the article source: DOJ argues Trump may cancel Biden-era national monuments
The Hill
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
DOJ: Trump can abolish protected monuments set aside by past presidents
President Trump can abolish national monuments that were protected from energy development and other activities by past presidents, the Justice Department has determined. The department issued a legal opinion this week that Trump can shrink or eliminate national monuments, overturning 1938 opinion saying that presidents did not have this power. 'The Antiquities Act of 1906 permits a President to alter a prior declaration of a national monument, including by finding that the 'landmarks,' 'structures,' or 'objects' identified in the prior declaration either never were or no longer are deserving of the Act's Protections,' the new DOJ opinion states. While this opinion does not in itself overturn any national monument boundaries, it sets the stage for doing so in the future. The document specifically names two national monuments set aside by the Biden administration, the Chuckwalla and the Sáttítla Highlands National Monuments. These monuments, located in California, encompass a combined 848,000 acres of particular significance to Native American tribes in the region. The White House told The Washington Post that it planned to eliminate them after saying in a later-scrubbed fact sheet that it was 'terminating proclamations declaring nearly a million acres constitute new national monuments that lock up vast amounts of land.' President Trump has, in the past, sought to shrink monuments designated by past presidents, including Utah's Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments. The legal opinion issued Tuesday said that the prior 1938 opinion, named for monument Castle Pinckney, made reducing the size of those monuments more complicated. 'The ongoing existence of Castle Pinckney has needlessly complicated litigation challenging the President's authority to alter the declarations of his predecessors,' it stated. 'Following President Trump's 2017 decision to substantially reduce but not eliminate the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, the parties spent considerable resources litigating whether those actions should be considered revocations…in no small part because Castle Pinckney opined that reduction but not elimination of a parcel was permissible.' Environmental advocates criticized the new opinion. 'The Trump administration can come to whatever conclusion it likes, but the courts have upheld monuments established under the Antiquities Act for over a century. This opinion is just that, an opinion. It does not mean presidents can legally shrink or eliminate monuments at will,' said Jennifer Rokala, executive director of The Center for Western Priorities, in a written statement. 'Once again the Trump administration finds itself on the wrong side of history and at odds with Western voters,' she added.
Fox News
3 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
DOJ argues Trump may cancel Biden-era national monuments
The Justice Department says President Donald Trump has the right to abolish national monuments established by former President Joe Biden at the request of Native American tribes. In the final days of his presidency, Biden established the Chuckwalla National Monument and the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument to protect hundreds of thousands of acres of land in California. According to Reuters, the Chuckwalla National Monument protects over 624,000 acres, while the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument protects 224,000 acres. The monuments could lose their status after a Trump DOJ legal opinion reversed a 1938 determination that presidents did not have the power to abolish monuments designated by previous presidents under the Antiquities Act of 1906. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora Pettit argued in the opinion that "for the Antiquities Act, the power to declare carries with it the power to revoke." In his first term, Trump reduced the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments in Utah, according to the Associated Press. The outlet noted that Trump claimed the monuments were a "massive land grab." However, Biden later restored them during his term in office. The DOJ's opinion, which was released on Tuesday, has already drawn backlash as Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., slammed the Trump administration. "At Donald Trump's order, his Justice Department is attempting to clear a path to erase national monuments," said Heinrich, who serves as the ranking member of the Senate Natural Resources Committee. "Here's what they don't understand: Our national monuments are about who we are. They tell the story of our ancestors, support jobs and our rural economies, and connect Americans to our history and the land itself. No president can erase that." Heinrich also vowed to oppose Republican efforts "to rip away our national monuments." In the legal opinion, Pettit wrote that Biden's designation of the new monuments was part of a larger effort to create an environmental legacy for himself. She also appeared to discredit Biden's reasons for designating the sites as national monuments, including the creation of more places for outdoor recreational activities, like biking, hiking, hunting and camping. "Such activities are entirely expected in a park, but they are wholly unrelated to (if not outright incompatible with) the protection of scientific or historical monuments," Pettit wrote. There is no clear indication if or when Trump would revoke the status of the two sites established by Biden—or the status of any other monuments. However, according to Reuters, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields spoke about the need to "liberate our federal lands and waters to oil, gas, coal, geothermal, and mineral leasing" when asked about the opinion.
E&E News
3 days ago
- Politics
- E&E News
DOJ tells Trump he can wipe out national monuments
A key legal adviser to the White House said that President Donald Trump has the authority under existing federal law to abolish a pair of national monuments in California, as well as any others across the country created by prior presidents. Lanora Pettit, who helms the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), overturned a nearly 90-year-old precedent governing national monuments in a new legal opinion published Tuesday but dated May 27. The opinion, authored by Pettit, declares that the Antiquities Act of 1906 not only allows presidents to create national monuments from federal lands, but also says they can declare that existing monuments 'either never were or no longer are deserving of the Act's protections.' Advertisement Pettit said in her opinion that the White House asked the office to examine whether Trump could revoke former President Joe Biden's proclamations creating the Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands national monuments in California. 'We think that the President can, and we should,' wrote Pettit in the opinion, which covers monuments broadly. There are more than 100 monuments established by prior presidents that have not been altered by Congress in some way, including converting the lands into national parks. Pettit also wrote that she was asked to review a 1938 opinion issued by then-Attorney General Homer Cummings to then-President Franklin Roosevelt, which has long guided interpretations of the Antiquities Act. In that opinion, Cummings determined that one president could not abolish a monument created by predecessors, ruling that because the designations are equivalent to an act of Congress, only lawmakers could abolish a monument. But Pettit criticized the 1938 ruling, writing that 'presidents have long been understood to have the power to come to a different factual decision regarding whether particular objects within a previously reserved monument merit protection.' 'For large parcels with multiple monuments (like Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands), there is no principled distinction between determining that one object is not worth protecting or all of them — and, by operation of law, no reasoned distinction between reducing and eliminating the parcel,' she added. In addition to the two California sites, the Trump administration has been weighing reductions to four other monuments: Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon and the Ironwood Forest monuments in Arizona, and the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks monument in New Mexico. Justin Pidot, a law professor at the University of Arizona who previously worked at White House's Council on Environmental Quality, said the OLC opinion marks a 'radical shift' that could potential impact dozens of monuments now and into the future. 'This will go down as one of the most significant rollbacks in conservation in history,' Pidot said. Pettit's interpretation of the Antiquities Act would effectively reduce protections for monuments to just the length of a presidential term, he said. 'It means that national monuments exist only at the pleasure of the current president who is in power,' Pidot said. 'It protects the resources, but there's no permanence. 'That's a big difference from where we've been for more than 100 years where the president protects monuments and they stay unless Congress acts,' he added. But Margaret Byfield, executive director of American Stewards of Liberty, which advocates for private property rights, praised the change and views it as an avenue to roll back a monument process that critics argue have enshrined too much federal acreage. 'The legislative record shows Congress never authorized Presidents to use the Antiquities Act to protect millions of acres of land across America,' Byfield said. 'The new legal opinion from the Counsel to the President makes this clear and our hope is that President Trump will immediately begin eliminating, or at the very least, drastically shrink the massive National Monuments created by the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden administrations. These lands need to be opened back up to the people for recreation and productive uses.'
