Legal Scholars File Brief Supporting National Monuments Case against Trump
In 2017, President Trump signed a proclamation reducing by about 85 percent the size of Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, a large landscape of pristine red rock canyons and culturally and historically significant Native American sites. He claimed that he had the authority to shrink this and any other national monument under the Antiquities Act of 1906 and had previously ordered the Department of the Interior to review additional monuments whose designations stretch back decades.
But does federal law really allow the president to "repeal and replace" our national monuments once they're established?
In a recent amicus brief that Professor Bob Anderson (University of Washington) and I filed with 11 other legal scholars, we answer that question with a resounding "no." The plain and clear text of the Antiquities Act is intentionally narrow, authorizing the president to establish national monuments to protect "historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest" and to "reserve parcels" of public lands to create those monuments. The law does not provide any authority or process for reversing those designations or modifying the size of national monuments once they're established.
The law's legislative history reinforces its text. Throughout …
- 1 (current)
