National Monuments Are Safe From Presidential Whims

The next fight over the legality of President Donald Trump’s executive orders will be about the designation of national monuments. Trump’s order to review all major monument declarations in the last 20 years sets the stage for reversal of some or all of President Barack Obama’s designations. Previous presidents have treated those decisions as irreversible. But Trump seems poised to break that tradition by claiming the implicit power to reverse anything a prior president has done.

The legal authority to declare national monuments comes from the Antiquities Act of 1906, landmark legislation (literally) enacted by Congress at the behest of President Theodore Roosevelt. The law gives the president authority to proclaim federal lands as national monuments in order to protect “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest.” It also provides that the designated monument “shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”