Last Friday, a notice appeared on the White House website stating that the new national monuments declared by President Biden, the Sátíttla Highlands and Chuckwalla National Monuments, had been “rescinded” by the President. No Executive Order was posted and the notice was scrubbed of this reference a few hours later.
While the status of this pronouncement is uncertain, the law is clear. The Antiquities Act of 1906 which President Biden used to create these magnificent national monuments contains no provision for a later President to undo what a prior President has designated under the Act. Any subsequent attempt by the White House to “rescind” a national monument is illegal.
This action is consistent with the current administration’s hostility towards our public lands, which has been demonstrated by Mr. Trump’s administrations since he took office the first time in 2016, but this time around the administration appears to have no regard for the law in their actions relating to them. Examples include:
- Through DOGE, gutting the staffing of public lands management agencies like the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service;
- The Executive Order declaring a national “timber emergency” and making commercial logging the primary management focus of our National Forest policy, and;
- The cancellation of ALL implementation regulations for the National Environmental Policy Act, which is our nation’s bedrock environmental law..
Fortunately, this administration’s radical excesses can be resisted with public outcry. They have backtracked repeatedly on decisions which have been met with expressed outrage and poor polling. Those who love America’s unique and extraordinary public lands must speak out now to prevent these harmful attempts to destroy or degrade them.
America’s wild places, natural landscapes and watersheds are our national inheritance. It is our responsibility to care for and steward them and to guard them for future generations. Perhaps the Trump administration is incapable of understanding the value of anything that can’t be counted in dollars, but CalWild and the American people know the value of our public lands and we will fight for them until he is gone.
