Interior Secretary Told He's Wasting Taxpayers' Money On Monument Study

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is wasting his time, and the country’s money, reviewing the value of 27 national monuments established since 1996 by presidents using their authority under the Antiquities Act, according to Democrats in the House of Representatives.

President Trump in April directed the Interior secretary to take a look at the monuments and determine whether Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama overstepped their authority by creating monuments larger in size than they needed to be.

But, say House Democrats, the president has no authority to tinker with the boundaries of monuments. Citing Article IV of the United States Constitution, 86 members of the House pointed out in a letter to the secretary that “the Congress shall have the Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States …”

In light of that constitutional authority, and more pressing issues such as drought, wildfire, invasive species, and maintenance needs across the public landscape, “developing a report to the President regarding the use of authority he does not possess is a misuse of your tine and the public’s money.”

Public comments on the fate of the 27 national monuments has been flowing in to the Interior Department, with hundreds of thousands already filed in support of the monuments, according to conservation groups. While the comment period regarding the future of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah ended Friday, comments on the 26 other monuments around the country will be taken through July 10.

The Democrats’ letter (found on this page) to Secretary Zinke came a week after the Virginia Law Review published a paper (attached below) arguing that presidents “lack the authority to abolish or diminish national monuments.” 

The paper — written by Mark Squillace, a law professor at the University of Colorado; Eric Biber, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley; Nicholas S. Bryner, of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA; and Sean B. Hecht, a law professor at UCLA — points out that while Congress gave presidents, via the Antiquities Act, the authority to create national monuments, “Congress did not, in the Antiquities Act or otherwise, delegate to the President the authority to modify or revoke the designation of monuments.”

“Further, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 makes it clear that the President does not have any implied authority to do so, but rather that Congress reserved for itself the power to modify or revoke monument designations,” it adds.

While some presidents in the past have reduced the acreage of some monuments, the law professors maintain they lacked the authority to do so.

“If the President cannot abolish a national monument because Congress did not delegate that authority to the President, it follows that the President also lacks the power to downsize or loosen the protections afforded to a monument,” they wrote. “Moreover, while the Antiquities Act limits national monuments to ‘the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected,’ that language does not grant the President the authority to second-guess the judgments made by previous Presidents regarding what area or level of protection is needed to protect the objects identified in an Antiquities Act proclamation.”