Latest news with #nationalmonuments
The Independent
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Trump gets the OK to end protections for national monuments, from the Statue of Liberty to the Grand Canyon
President Donald Trump has the authority to abolish national monuments protected by his predecessors, the Justice Department recently said. In a legal document dated to May 27, the department overturned a nearly 90-year-old opinion that said presidents did not have that ability, saying that its conclusions were 'wrong' and 'can no longer be relied upon.' ' 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; and such an alteration can have the effect of eliminating entirely the reservation of the parcel of land previously associated with a national monument,' the Office of Legal Counsel's Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora Pettit wrote. ' The contrary conclusion of the Attorney General in Proposed Abolishment of Castle Pinckney National Monument, 39 Op. Att'y Gen. 185 (1938), was incorrect.' The document specifically refers to former President Joe Biden establishing California's Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands National Monuments. The monuments, that have particular significance to Native American tribes and extend over some 848,000 acres of land, barred oil and natural gas drilling and mining there. The Trump administration told The Washington Post in March that it has plans to eliminate them. In April, the paper reported that Interior Department Officials were studying whether to scale back at least six national monuments, and a person briefed on the matter said the aim was to free up land for drilling and mining. Biden established 10 new monuments during his tenure. 'America's energy infrastructure was on life-support when President Trump got into office; and in nearly six months, the administration has shocked this critical industry back into life, making good on another promise to the American people,' the White House's Harrison Fields, principal deputy press secretary, told The Independent in an emailed statement responding to question about the Justice Department's opinion. 'It's imperative that the Senate passes OBBB to completely end Biden's war on American energy, and will liberate our federal lands and waters to oil, gas, coal, geothermal, and mineral leasing.' The Justice Department did not immediately respond to The Independent's request for comment on the matter. While this opinion does not overturn any national monument, it hints at future action. Trump has taken steps to shrink monuments in the past. During his first administration, he moved to slash Utah's Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments: the first such move of its kind in more than 50 years. Biden reversed Trump's decision before the courts could make a final ruling on the matter. Earlier this year, Trump opened the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine national monument to commercial fishing while leaving the monument in place. The Interior Department is weighing changes to monuments across the country as part of the push to 'restore American energy dominance.' The National Park Service alone manages more than 100 national monuments established under the authority of the Antiquities Act. Some are also co-managed by the U.S. and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Army, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Some of those include the Statue of Liberty, the Stonewall Inn, the Grand Canyon, Sequoia National Forest, and the Lincoln Memorial. While Congress must approve the designation of national parks, a national monument is designated by a president via the Antiquities Act. Around half of the nation's national parks were first designated monuments, and all except three presidents have used the act to protect areas both offshore and on land. Presidents, including Dwight Eisenhower, have also diminished monuments. Responding to the document, environmental advocate groups have asserted there might not be much legal standing and that moves to eliminate or shrink monuments would be less than popular. "There's no reason to think the OLC opinion should make much difference to the White House. National monuments have broad public and political support, and shrinking or revoking them will only damage the Trump Administration's popularity,' Aaron Paul, the staff attorney for the Grand Canyon Trust, told The Independent in an emailed statement. 'Besides, if the president tries to shrink or eliminate monuments, it would send the question to the courts, which is the real test of whether the OLC's views have any validity or not." '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,' Jennifer Rokala, executive director of The Center for Western Priorities, said in a written statement. 'Once again the Trump administration finds itself on the wrong side of history and at odds with Western voters,' she said.
CNN
2 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Trump can revoke national monument designations, Justice Department says
President Donald Trump has broad authority to revoke protected land designated as national monuments by past presidents, the Justice Department said in a new legal opinion. The May 27 legal opinion from the Justice Department found that presidents can move broadly to cancel national monuments, challenging a 1938 determination saying monuments created under the Antiquities Act cannot be rescinded and removed from protection. The memo could serve as a legal basis to attempt to withdraw vast amounts of land from protected status. Trump's administration wants to prioritize fossil fuel and energy development, such as drilling for oil and gas and mining for coal and critical minerals, including on federal lands. 'For the Antiquities Act, the power to declare carries with it the power to revoke,' the Justice Department memo states. 'If the President can declare that his predecessor was wrong regarding the value of preserving one such object on a given parcel, there is nothing preventing him from declaring that his predecessor was wrong about all such objects on a given parcel.' The DOJ memo mentioned two California national monuments designated by former President Joe Biden shortly before leaving office. In Trump's first term, the president shrank the size of two national monuments in Utah, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante, and reduced the size of a national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean. Biden restored the three areas upon taking office and designated or expanded 12 national monuments during his term. Environmental groups blasted the DOJ opinion. 'This opinion flies in the face of a century of interpretation of the Antiquities Act,' Axie Navas, designations director of conservation programs and policy at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement. 'Americans overwhelmingly support our public lands and oppose seeing them dismantled or destroyed.'
CNN
2 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Trump can revoke national monument designations, Justice Department says
President Donald Trump has broad authority to revoke protected land designated as national monuments by past presidents, the Justice Department said in a new legal opinion. The May 27 legal opinion from the Justice Department found that presidents can move broadly to cancel national monuments, challenging a 1938 determination saying monuments created under the Antiquities Act cannot be rescinded and removed from protection. The memo could serve as a legal basis to attempt to withdraw vast amounts of land from protected status. Trump's administration wants to prioritize fossil fuel and energy development, such as drilling for oil and gas and mining for coal and critical minerals, including on federal lands. 'For the Antiquities Act, the power to declare carries with it the power to revoke,' the Justice Department memo states. 'If the President can declare that his predecessor was wrong regarding the value of preserving one such object on a given parcel, there is nothing preventing him from declaring that his predecessor was wrong about all such objects on a given parcel.' The DOJ memo mentioned two California national monuments designated by former President Joe Biden shortly before leaving office. In Trump's first term, the president shrank the size of two national monuments in Utah, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante, and reduced the size of a national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean. Biden restored the three areas upon taking office and designated or expanded 12 national monuments during his term. Environmental groups blasted the DOJ opinion. 'This opinion flies in the face of a century of interpretation of the Antiquities Act,' Axie Navas, designations director of conservation programs and policy at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement. 'Americans overwhelmingly support our public lands and oppose seeing them dismantled or destroyed.'
Fox News
2 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.
Washington Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
US Justice Department says Trump can cancel national monuments that protect landscapes
BILLINGS, Mont. — Lawyers for President Donald Trump's administration say he has the authority to abolish national monuments meant to protect historical and archaeological sites across broad landscapes, including two in California created by his predecessor at the request of Native American tribes. A Justice Department legal opinion released Tuesday disavowed a 1938 determination that monuments created by previous presidents under the Antiquities Act can't be revoked. The department said presidents can cancel monument designations if protections aren't warranted. The finding comes as the Interior Department under Trump weighs changes to monuments across the nation as part of the administration's push to expand U.S. energy production. Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Natural Resources Committee, said that at Trump's order, 'his Justice Department is attempting to clear a path to erase national monuments.' Trump in his first term reduced the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments in Utah, calling them a 'massive land grab.' He also lifted fishing restrictions within a sprawling marine monument off the New England Coast. Former President Joe Biden reversed the moves and restored the monuments. The two monuments singled out in the newly released Justice Department opinion were designated by Biden in his final days in office: Chuckwalla National Monument, in Southern California near Joshua Tree National Park, and Sáttítla Highlands National Monument, in Northern California. The Democrat's declarations for the monuments barred oil and natural gas drilling and mining on the 624,000-acre (2,400-square-kilometer) Chuckwalla site, and the roughly 225,000 acres (800 square kilometers) Sáttítla Highlands site near the California-Oregon border. Chuckwalla has natural wonders including the Painted Canyon of Mecca Hills and Alligator Rock, and is home to rare species of plants and animals like the desert bighorn sheep and the Chuckwalla lizard. The Sáttítla Highlands include the ancestral homelands of the Pit River Tribe and Modoc Peoples. All but three presidents have used the 1906 Antiquities Act to protect unique landscapes and cultural resources. About half the national parks in the U.S. were first designated as monuments. But critics of monument designations under Biden and Obama say the protective boundaries were stretched too far, hindering mining for critical minerals. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora Pettit wrote in the Trump administration opinion that Biden's protections of Chuckwalla and the Sattítla Highlands were part of the Democrat's attempts to create for himself an environmental legacy that includes more places to hike, bike, camp or hunt. '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. Trump in April lifted commercial fishing prohibitions within an expansive marine monument in the Pacific Ocean created under former President Barack Obama. Environmental groups said Tuesday's Justice Department opinion doesn't give him the authority to shrink monuments at will. 'Americans overwhelmingly support our public lands and oppose seeing them dismantled or destroyed,' said Axie Navas with The Wilderness Society. Biden established 10 new monuments, among them the site of a 1908 race riot in Springfield, Illinois , and another on a sacred Native American site near the Grand Canyon. Since 1912, presidents have issued more than a dozen proclamations that diminished monuments, according to a National Park Service database. Dwight Eisenhower was most active in undoing the proclamations of his predecessors as he diminished six monuments, including Arches in Utah, Great Sand Dunes in Colorado and Glacier Bay in Alaska, which have all since become national parks. Trump's moves to shrink the Utah monuments in his first term were challenged by environmental groups that said protections for the sites safeguard water supplies and wildlife while preserving cultural sites. The reductions were reversed by Biden before the case was resolved, and it remains pending. President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act after lobbying by educators and scientists who wanted to protect sites from artifact looting and haphazard collecting by individuals. It was the first law in the U.S. to establish legal protections for cultural and natural resources of historic or scientific interest on federal lands.
