What appears to be the beginning process to rescind or reduce the size of national monuments was launched last week in a legal memorandum by Counsel to the President.
The memorandum proclaims the Antiquities Act of 1906 permits the President to alter a prior declaration of a national monument, including finding that the “landmarks,” “structures,” or “objects” identified in a prior declaration either never were or no longer are deserving of the Act’s protections.
It also stated such a proclamation by the President can have the effect of entirely eliminating the land associated with a national monument.
The Antiquities Act of 1906 gives the President the power to proclaim “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest,” on lands owned by the federal government to be national monuments (16 USC 431). As the recent White House memo states: “the Act was designed to address a specific problem: vandalism by settlers moving into distant areas of the Southwest,” The President’s power is limited to reserving the smallest area necessary to protect the designated objects.
What was intended to empower the President to prevent the looting of cultural sites turned into one of the primary tools the Biden Administration used to implement the 30×30 land grab.
On his way out the door January 14, 2025, President Biden issued a Proclamation declaring the “Chuckwalla National Monument in southern California, describing it as the ‘capstone action to create’ the Moab to Mojave Conservation Corridor, ‘the largest corridor of protected lands in the continental United States, covering nearly 18 million acres . . . along the Colorado River, across the Colorado Plateau, and into the deserts of California.’” (see White House memo)
The memo is already causing concern among the environmental community as the White House is now poised to reduce and revoke Biden’s national monument designations. The environmental publication E&E News reached out to ASL for our perspective, to which Margaret Byfield responded by stating:
“The legislative record shows Congress never authorized Presidents to use the Antiquities Act to protect millions of acres of land across America. 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.”
To read the memorandum click here.
