The Antiquities Act of 1906 authorized the president to create national monuments by presidential proclamation. Since then, presidents have invoked the act to protect numerous sites with nationally significant natural and cultural resources. Here are some salient statistics..
2.03 million acres
Total area of the national monuments in the National Park System. That's nearly 3,600 square miles.
140,000 square miles
Area of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, the largest protected area proclaimed under authority of the Antiquities Act. Larger than all but four states, this national monument was proclaimed by President George W. Bush in 2006. It is co-administered by NOAA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
5,000 acres
Maximum size of a national monument that a president may proclaim in Alaska without first getting the explicit consent of Congress. The 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) included this stipulation, which was prompted by President Jimmy Carter's use of the Antiquities Act in 1978 to proclaim 15 national monuments in Alaska totaling 56 million acres.
840 miles
Approximate length of the BLM-managed California Coastal National Monument, which protects all islets, reefs, and rock outcroppings with 12 nautical miles along the entire coast of California.
100
Number of national monuments. Proclamations and redesignations cause the count to change frequently.
75
National monuments in the National Park System. The National Park Service manages or co-manages three-quarters of the extant national monuments, which is a far larger share than any other federal agency.
55
National monuments created primarily to preserve natural resources such as geologic, marine, and volcanic sites.
27
States with national monuments. There are also national monuments in American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, the Minor Outlying Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands.
22
National monuments established to preserve Native American sites, such as Ancestral Puebloan ruins in the Southwest.
19
National monuments proclaimed by President Bill Clinton during his two terms of office. He proclaimed seven of these in 2001 just before he left office.
18
National monuments in Arizona, which has the most of any state. Next come New Mexico (12) and California (10).
15
Presidents who have invoked the Antiquities Act to proclaim national monuments. Since the Antiquities Act became law in 1906, all but three presidents -- Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush -- have used it to proclaim national monuments.
7
National Monuments in the National Park System with "fort" as part of their official name. This category includes Fort Frederica, Fort Matanzas, Fort McHenry, Fort Pulaski, Fort Stanwix, Fort Sumter, and Fort Union National Monuments.
6
Federal agencies that administer or co-administer national monuments. In additional to the National Park Service, national monuments are administered or co-administered by the Bureau of Land Management (16), the U.S. Forest Service (6), the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (6), The Armed Forces Retirement Home (1), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (1).
5
National monuments co-administered by more than one federal agency. The National Park Service co-administers three national monuments, including two with the Bureau of Land Management (Craters of the Moon and Grand Canyon-Parashant) and one with the Fish & Wildlife Service (World War II Valor in the Pacific)..
0
National monuments that can be created or expanded by presidential proclamation in Wyoming without the express permission of the state of Wyoming. Congress granted this concession to Wyoming (via a 1950 amendment to the Antiquities Act) after state residents vehemently objected to the proclamation of Jackson Hole National Monument in 1943.
Comments
Where did you get your information to whether sites were preserving resources? I am writing a paper on whether the motivations for national monument creation have changed over time due to different economic factors and could use some information, thanks!
Thank you Bob Janiskee for the article and stimulating a helpful discussion.
1. On the point of the Jimmy Carter - Cecil Andrus national monuments, and the provision of the Alaska Lands Act [ANILCA]: Bob, forgive me if this sounds like a geeky nuance, but i think it important. The nuance is over your language, that the "Future Executive Actions" provision (Section 1326 of PL 96-487; 16 USC 3213), was "prompted by Jimmy Carter's use of the Antiquities Act" totalling 56 M ac.
Sec. 1326 evolved differently, and its meaning is part of the larger process, rather than anything like the current inflamed retaliatory rage of so many perpetually angry current Members of Congress. Sec. 1326 WAS NOT retaliation. Rather, here is what was going on:
Congress was in the process of chopping up Alaska in big hunks, without much finesse and even less thought about the future of conservation. Of the 375 million acres, an area the size of the state of California was authorized to be taken by the State of Alaska. The state was selecting lands slowly when a super-giant oil field was discovered in Prudhoe Bay all the way at the wrong end of the state; the state selected and patented all that area, but getting the oil across the state was a problem. Not only were the environmental issues massive, but Native Alaskans reminded everybody they had never been conquered by Russia nor the USA, and when Russia 'sold' Alaska to the USA Russia required the US to promise to provide a settlement for Natives. A generation later, instead of providing a settlement, Congress passed a bill saying: SOMEDAY we will settle this. And then did nothing until the oil happened.
So. . .. um. . . how can we build the pipeline if it is unsettled who owns the land??
The answer was two things, one, Senator Gravel extracted a bill permitting the pipeline to be built without going through litigation over the impact statement, and, two, Congress developed a "Native Claims Settlement Act" (ANCSA) to provide about 40 million acres to Native Alaskan 'corporations' and another 2 m ac or so for individual native allotments.
At that point environmentalists, represented by Rep. John Saylor (R-PA) and Mo Udall (D-AZ) stepped in and informed the Alaska congessional delegation that without a complete settlement of the national interest in lands in Alaska, INCLUDING lands for conservation, there would be no ANCSA. (40 additional million acres for development on to of the existing 100 million acres for development, all of it mostly cherry picked as the very finest federal lands, was seen by pro-development as a big boost).
So, to get ANCSA through, Alaska accepted the section d-1 and d-2 provisions that provided mechanisms to freeze from all development and selection lands for national interest in conservation, IN ORDER TO MAKE A BALANCED OVER ALL PLAN.
The d-2 provision had a drop-dead date of December 1978, and when Gravel again tried to poison every thing to do something splashy to again get reelected, Jimmy Carter moved to protect key spots that met the criteria of the Antiquities Act.
But the Carter National Monuments using the authority of the Antiquities Act and a Presidential Proclamation COULD NOT DO ALL THE THINGS laws can be made to do, things that the pending Alaska Lands Act legislation called to do, like create National Wilderness Areas. Like create National Wild Rivers. Like provide properly for the opportunity for subsistence uses on federal lands for local rural residents, in recognition especially, of the ongoing uses of the resources by Alaska Native peoples. Like fine tuning sport hunting opportunities vs the benefits of habitat with unhunted wildlife. Like provide for how to consider transportation corridors (like future pipelines) for the future. Like to try to balance economic, environmental and social needs, local and national. And another hundred pages plus, of exceptions and special protections.
Times then were not quite as crazy as times now, when it comes to distrust of fellow citizens, but the times were like now in this sense of distrust among the various sides of this contentious but ultimately successful compromise:
there was a great need to recognize that the intent of congress is that with the Alaska Lands Act (ANILCA) the general balance had been achieved: in effect, the Pipeline, the land for the state, the land for the Native peoples and the land for the major conservation systems, BUT it would not be to say the conservation was complete. The Alaska Delegation had language for section 1326 that would have said preservation was complete. We would not agree to that. Instead, what the law says is that Executive (President/Secretary) withdrawals under "EXISTING" law over 5,000 ac are not effective unless followed by congression joint resolution.
But, else where in the law, in the "Purposes" clause (Sec. 101(d) --which as 'Purposes' or 'Findings' some claim has not the power of law but i think surely does represent Congressional Intent -- there is a sufficiency clause, saying that the environmental, economic and social needs HAVE been provided for, representin a "proper balance" between uses has been achieved.
Of course, whatever Congress writes now does not bind a future Congress, no matter what sec. 101(d) says about obviating new conservation system units.
This says nothing about expanding existing units, such as getting the Killik River back for the Gates of the Arctic National Park.
Actually, at the time this the legislation and the National Monuments for Alaska were cooking, this attitude of "sufficiency" helped create the best possible conservation Units, considering that we probably would not have the chance again.
Rogers Morton in 1973, for the creation of these National Conservation Units, called for us all "to do things right the FIRST time." So many parks like Yellowstone and Everglades or Governors Island were created with bad boundaries that literally bisected the critical park resource, making true park sustainability impossible.
For Alaska, this Republican Secretary of Interior and former Member of Congress called of us to make the parks and wildlife refuges WHOLE, and for the most part the Jimmy Carter National Monuments and the Congressional parks, refuges and wilderness areas DID.
Normally, as one example, you would never create a wilderness area at the same time as you would the underlying national park: but in the Alaska Land Act, considering that this was to be a balanced settlement of all the economic and social and environmental highest and best uses, it made sense to go for Wilderness in the same law that created the park (or in the same law that provided more highly tuned statutory authority for the Carter Monuments).
That is why Wilderness was created for the Becharof National Wildlife Refuge, so to protect the brown bear population of the adjacent Katmai National Park and the purposes of the refuge resource itself.
So now when Senator Murkowski tries to drive a roadway through Bescharof NWR, she should be reminded that the wilderness was the result of a balanced congressional plan for economic development AND conservation, and in fact important areas within the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park originally in the balance as closed to sport hunting, were instead converted to National Preserve land and opened to sport hunting when the Bescharof decision was made, so the balance would stay balanced.
So Bob Janiskee, none of this is exactly to correct anything you said, but to prevent anyone seeing this history through today's toxic glasses, to correct any thinking that what they are seeing in Section 1326 was retaliation at President Carter's for creating national monuments in Alaska. It was not.
It instead reflected Congress' effort to get everybody to come up, for the first time in US History, with a balanced plan for state citizens, development of national commodity interests, recognition of the rights of Native Americans, and recognition of the permanent need of all the citizens of the US for lands to be preserved.
2. For Lane: i don't have right now a specific citation to give for the question of economic and environmental factors as motives for the creation of national monuments, but i have read a lot about creation of parklands of the past, and observed the protection of a lot of parks and presidentially proclaimed national monuments. The short answer is all of them are for conservation and economic reasons. "Economics" defined broadly, not as an appraiser would assess land, but on the larger VALUE to the nation. Even when a President creates a national monument to protect resources in an emergency because of imminent development threats -- a primary need recognized by Congress was to enable the government to act when antiquities were about to be forever destroyed -- there was an economic understanding.
Even when it appears a President or Congress only is thinking of the economic benefit of a National Monument, they always are also recognizing the benefits of preservation to the nation.
Great Summary D-2. the problem is, that 5000 acre limit is wholly insufficient to conserve any other areas in Alaska that warrant conservation . Alaska does nothing small, as you know. Bristol Bay, for instance. the watershed of that salmon fishery covers 40000 sq miles, and that does not include the bay itself (another 55000 sq miles) or federal lands running down the peninsula, of which there is quite a bit not already included in monuments refuges and so on.
Now that 5000 acre limit does have two exceptions,1- it does not apply to areas conserved prior to 1980- the Arctic Wildlife Refuge for instance, was established in 1960, thus changing the entire 19.6 million acre refuge into a monument would be valid- and 2 it does not apply to marine areas. so for instance Bristol Bay, the bay, could be set aside as a monument without violating the 5000 acre limit. Obama essentially did that in 2014, under the auspices of the Outer Continent Shelf Lands Act(a law similar to the Antiquities Act), which allows the president to withdraw marine areas on the continental shelf from oil and gas drilling on a temporary or permanent basis. Obamas 2014 move was of the permanent kind. under the law, a future president may not reopen an area permanently closed to oil and gas drilling, and a court in Alaska ruled Trump overstepped his authority when he tried to overturn Obamas 2016 move to set aside the US Arctic. He wanted to reopen Bristol Bay as well, but the Alaska delegation told him they were strongly opposed to that.
going back to Carter and Andrus. Andrus was pushing Carter to set aside a LOT more areas as monuments and a lot more acreage. Carter settled on 17 monuments and 56 milion acres, Andrus wanted twice that number. Had he gotten his way,areas like ANWR and the Tongass and possibly Bristol Bay would have gotten monument designation. We would not be squabbling over drilling in ANWR or considering whether to OK Pebble Mine near Bristol Bay, because monuments preclude both except where they are already ongoing. Both areas IMO need to be protected in their entirety, thus requiring monuments covering nearly 20 and 80 million acres respectively. Bristol Bay would become, by far, the largest land area set aside as a monument or park . There are several huge marine monuments, Pacific Remote Islands, for instance covers an area roughly twice that of Texas.
ANILCA conserved many areas but it left others up to the future. By imposing the 5000 acre limit , it basically meant that no conservation of those other areas is possible. Congress does not act quickly in the best of times, its why the Antiquities Act was passed in the first place, to allow fast conservation of areas when Congress cant or wont get its act together. Given intense Republican hostility to presidential monuments, and conservation in general, the only way Congress would ever ok a future president's large monument designation in Alaska, is if the Democrats hold Congress and the White House .
I personally would see the 5000 acre limit removed,( as well as the ban on monuments in Wyominglifted ), but I would also have Congress give the president a pot of money with which to fund monuments he designates, with a floor of 100M per monument , and with certain restrictions, such as no shrinking a monuments budget, and no exceeding say 2 billion dollars a year for a monuments budget . the bigger the monument in acreage, the bigger its budget. Congress would have an even bigger pot of money for the same purpose, without the limits imposed on the president. Congress could, if they so chose, give a monument 10 billion dollars a year.
Under this system, not only would areas be protected but they would get proper funding too . in Alaska's case you'd see tens of billions of dollars a year flowing into the state. In such a small state, population wise, that money would go a LONG way. Funding would be stable, because the funding would be for 10 years, so you'd know what you'd get in year 1, Year 5 Year 8 etc. I would also have 2 five year reports to Congress, like the progress reports you had in school. Basically, How are we doing in regards to funding, supporting local communities , balancing, say, snowmobiling and hunting, with the conservation mandate, etc.? Every 10 years it would be up to Congress to renew funding. It would be staggered based on when the the monument was declared. so a Bristol Bay monument declared in 2021 would be up for renewal in 2031, a 2025 BigHorn Mountains NM would get considered in 2035 etc. IF a monument is folded into a nearby national park, or redesignated as a park, the funding would continue until the 10 years is up.
There are at least 1000 areas nationwide deserving of national monument status, and 40 of them lie in Alaska. ANILCA basically dealt with the 17 monuments Carter created, it did not add any other monuments of its own, it more or less tweakerd the sizes of the monument, mostly makinng them bigger - Wrangell St Elias fior instance went from 11 million acres to 13 million- and turned some into preserves and refuges.
Can you find some more monuments of wyoming pls? Not national parks