President Trump has the authority to abolish national monuments set aside by past presidents to protect areas of historic and scientific interest, the Justice Department said in an opinion this week, potentially laying the groundwork to dismantle California’s two newest monuments — Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands.
The May 27 legal opinion released Tuesday overturns a more than 80-year-old Justice Department determination that presidents can’t revoke national monuments created by their predecessors under the Antiquities Act.
The finding follows an Interior Department effort to explore altering monuments as part of a push to expand U.S. energy production, a move that set off alarm bells among conservationists that certain public lands could be on the chopping block.
Then-President Biden signed proclamations designating Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands national monuments in California’s desert and far north shortly before leaving office early this year. The Justice Department, in its new opinion, said it was asked to look into whether the Antiquities Act — the 1906 law permitting presidents to create monuments — can be used to revoke them.
The opinion, titled, “Revocation of Prior Monument Designations,” says it can.
In the 50-page document, Deputy Assistant Atty. Gen. Lanora Pettit wrote that presidents can find “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.”
Since its passage, the Antiquities Act has been used by 18 presidents — split evenly between Republicans and Democrats — to designate monuments. California is home to 21 national monuments, more than any other state.
During a Wednesday hearing in Washington, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) questioned Interior Secretary Doug Burgum about the opinion, which he called “extremely dangerous.”
He specifically asked what the secretary’s intentions were with regard to the Golden State’s newest monuments, which he described as enjoying strong bipartisan support.
“We have a responsibility and direction to take a look at the recently created ones,” Burgum replied.
“There are people in communities, when we create restrictions on land use, that does restrict some of their economic opportunity, and we want to listen to those as well,” he said, adding that the department is seeking “a balanced approach” and would be open to further dialogue.
Padilla and fellow Sen. Adam Schiff were among the federal lawmakers from California who pushed for the creation of the monuments.
“The Trump administration is seeking to rewrite the Antiquities Act without the approval of Congress and erase all precedent prohibiting the elimination of lands designated as a national monument,” Schiff said in a statement. “And, continuing his assault on the Golden State, the president seems to have at least two California treasures in mind: Chuckwalla and Sáttítla national monuments.”
“But the law is clear: Congress did not intend for the Antiquities Act to give Donald Trump or any other president the power to reverse the decades of hard work undertaken by conservationists, tribal leaders, and local California communities to safeguard precious lands and cultural sites,” he added.
Chuckwalla spans 624,000 acres of dramatic canyons and rugged land adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California, while Sáttítla encompasses 224,000 acres of pristine forests and unique geological features near the Oregon border. Native Americans led the charge to safeguard the land they consider sacred.
Critics of the way the Antiquities Act has been used to set aside vast tracts of land often point to a mandate for monuments to be limited to the “smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”
But public lands advocates note that the law has long been used by presidents to protect large landmasses — including the designation of the Grand Canyon by Theodore Roosevelt in 1908.
Padilla said that Western states skew large relative to their Eastern counterparts, “so the appropriateness and size of monuments and other areas of designation tend to be larger.”
John Leshy, an emeritus professor at UC College of the Law, San Francisco, and a former solicitor at the Interior Department, sees the new opinion as a largely symbolic gesture being made by the Trump administration on behalf of a faction of the Republican Party that “hates public lands.”
“I think they’re throwing that out to try to placate them and say, ‘We’re on your side,’” he said. “But will that quiet them down until the president actually takes some sort of action? I don’t know.”
Even before California’s youngest monuments were designated, there were fears they could be rolled back by the Trump administration.
During his first term, Trump sharply reduced the boundaries of two monuments in Utah — Bear’s Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante — and stripped protections from a marine monument off the coast of New England to allow commercial fishing. The Biden administration reversed the changes.
In February, Burgum issued an order that many saw as opening the door to potentially eliminating or shrinking monuments. He directed his assistant secretaries to “review and, as appropriate, revise all withdrawn public lands,” citing a federal statute corresponding to the law that allows presidents to create monuments.
Then, a little over a month later, the Trump administration caused confusion when it issued and then appeared to roll back an announcement implying the president had rescinded his predecessor’s orders creating Chuckwalla and Sáttítla.
Last month, a federal suit was filed by a Texas-based conservative think tank on behalf of plaintiffs to invalidate the Chuckwalla monument, arguing Biden had overstepped his authority when he created it.
Some believed California’s new monuments were at most risk of being targeted, in part because Trump might seek to undo his predecessor’s actions.
Whether presidents have the authority to alter monuments is hotly contested. Litigation challenging Trump’s previous monument reductions was still pending when Biden reversed them and the matter was never settled.
“Courts have never ruled on this issue one way or another,” Leshy said. “They’ve just been silent on whether one president can undo another president’s proclamation.”
If Trump moves to undo monuments in California, litigation is likely.
Krystian Lahage of the Mojave Desert Land Trust, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the California desert, said his group is trying to raise awareness of the broad support for Chuckwalla.
Sunday marked the 119th anniversary of the Antiquities Act, and to celebrate the group co-hosted an event that Lahage said drew more than 100 people. There was an off-roading tour, an exploration of the geology and wildlife, stargazing and a community BBQ.
“Our goal there was to show folks all the different things they can do in the national monument — and what it’s protecting,” he said.
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