After President Donald Trump’s announced Tuesday that he was reducing the land size of two national monuments, Patagonia, the outdoor clothing and gear store, replaced its homepage with a statement claiming that Trump had illegally stolen that land.
“The President Stole Your Land,” reads the headline on Patagonia’s website. “In an illegal move,” the page continues, “the president just reduced the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. This is the largest elimination of protected land in American history.”
The two monuments are located in Utah; Grand Staircase-Escalante was established by President Clinton in 1996 and Bears Ears by President Obama in 2016.
Bears Ears will be reduced from 1.5 million acres to 228,784 acres, while Staircase Escalante will be reduced to 1,006,341 acres, according to a White House press release. It was 1.9 million acres originally.
The press release notes that, “Presidents have modified the boundaries to remove lands from monuments 18 times in the past.”
What does the law say?
Some commentators and scholars argue the Antiquities Act of 1906 (passed by Theodore Roosevelt) does not expressly give the president legal authority to reduce national monuments. Here’s what the act delineates in regards to the president:
In an op-ed for the Washington Post, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation Jonathan Wood argues that “nothing in the Antiquities Act forbids the president from revoking or shrinking a national monument.” Other legal studies, cited by Wood, argue the same; noting that presidents cannot bind future presidents to their use of executive power.
Patagonia, however, does not solely rely on the Antiquities Act to make its case.
In a statement to the Weekly Standard, Patagonia argues that no past reductions from former presidents “have been challenged – or upheld – in court.” In the past, seven presidents have reduced the land size of national monuments, according to Wood.
Patagonia also claims the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) of 1976 affirms “that only Congress has the authority to modify national monuments.” The last reduction occurred in the 1960s, before the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. The FLPMA states that the secretary of the interior, “shall not make, modify, or revoke any withdrawal created by Act of Congress; make a withdrawal which can be made only by Act of Congress.”
A report from legal scholars Todd F. Gaziano and John Yoo argues, however, that the FLPMA, “neither amended the Antiquities Act in 1976, nor change the President’s authority to revoke a national monument in the text of the FLPMA.”
The administration faces several lawsuits on this issue.
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