Justice Department says Trump can cancel national monuments that protect landscapes

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Source: Associated Press, via NPR

POLITICS
Justice Department says Trump can cancel national monuments that protect landscapes

JUNE 11, 2025 1:46 AM ET
By The Associated Press


A sign is set up ahead of President Joe Biden's visit to the Chuckwalla National Monument, Jan. 7, 2025, to the Coachella Valley, Calif.
Damian Dovarganes/AP

BILLINGS, Mont. -- Lawyers for President Donald Trump's administration say he has the authority to abolish national monuments meant to protect historical and archaeological sites across broad landscapes, including two in California created by his predecessor at the request of Native American tribes.

A Justice Department legal opinion released Tuesday disavowed a 1938 determination that monuments created by previous presidents under the Antiquities Act can't be revoked. The department said presidents can cancel monument designations if protections aren't warranted.

The finding comes as the Interior Department under Trump weighs changes to monuments across the nation as part of the administration's push to expand U.S. energy production.

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Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/06/11/nx-s1-5430270/justice-department-says-trump-can-cancel-national-monuments-that-protect-landscapes

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https://www.eenews.net/articles/doj-tells-trump-he-can-wipe-out-national-monuments/

E&E News PM

DOJ tells Trump he can wipe out national monuments

By JENNIFER YACHNIN 06/10/2025 04:33 PM EDT

An opinion by the Office of Legal Counsel says the Antiquities Act of 1906 allows presidents to shrink or eliminate designations by previous presidents.


A temporary sign installed in January at the Chuckwalla National Monument in the Coachella Valley of California, which was created by former President Joe Biden. Damian Dovarganes/AP

A key legal adviser to the White House said that President Donald Trump has the authority under existing federal law to abolish a pair of national monuments in California, as well as any others across the country created by prior presidents.

Lanora Pettit, who helms the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), overturned a nearly 90-year-old precedent governing national monuments in a new legal opinion published Tuesday but dated May 27.

The opinion, authored by Pettit, declares that the Antiquities Act of 1906 not only allows presidents to create national monuments from federal lands, but also says they can declare that existing monuments "either never were or no longer are deserving of the Act's protections."

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