Let Congress, not presidents, decide the future of public lands
President Donald Trump’s decision to shrink Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument has reignited a familiar fight over public lands. But it also raises a more fundamental question: if it is troubling for one president to shrink a national monument unilaterally, why was it not just as troubling for a previous president to create one spanning nearly 2 million acres in the first place?
TL;DR
- Presidential decisions to create and shrink national monuments, like Grand Staircase-Escalante, demonstrate the issue of unilateral executive power over federal lands.
- The Antiquities Act, intended to protect archaeological sites, has been increasingly used by presidents to designate vast areas of land and sea, with 90% of designated acreage set aside in the last 20 years.
- Rep. Paul Gosar's LANDs Act proposes reforms to limit presidential authority, requiring congressional approval for monument designations over 640 acres, clarifying 'lands' to exclude marine areas, and defining 'objects of antiquity' more narrowly.
- These reforms aim to give Congress a direct voice in major federal land decisions and create more durable policies, reducing uncertainty caused by presidential "whipsaw" actions.