PD Editorial: Send a message about national monuments

No president has tried to reverse a national monument designation.

There’s reason to doubt that doing so would be legal.

But these are unusual times, and President Donald Trump has directed his interior secretary to review every national monument larger than 100,000 acres that has been established since 1996, the final year of Bill Clinton’s presidency.

Trump’s executive order creates uncertainty about two dozen national monuments, including Berryessa Snow Mountain and four others in California.

The official rationale - political cover may be a more accurate description - is that the review by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke gives the public a chance to weigh in on these monuments. The public already has weighed in, but the administration may need a reminder.

Consider as an example Berryessa Snow Mountain, a spectacular Northern California wilderness area with opportunities for hiking, camping, rafting and other recreational activities on publicly owned land. President Barack Obama established the monument, using his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906, after a decade of information gathering, organizing and appeals by supporters, including businesses, conservation groups and local governments.

The strong display of public support isn’t unique to Berryessa Snow Mountain.

Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, which is widely believed to be the primary target of the Trump administration, was the subject of seven years of broad public debate before its designation last year.

As we noted last month when Trump ordered the review, none of the land in question is privately owned. The Antiquities Act authorizes presidents to “preserve historic landmarks, prehistoric structures and other objects of historic or scientific interest” on land owned or controlled by the federal government.

Studies have shown that monuments and parks are tourist attractions, stimulating the economies of nearby communities. But they aren’t compatible with mining, grazing and fossil fuel development - interests that, in many cases, would prefer to see federal land turned over to states that might give development and extraction of resources higher priority than conservation.

There are a handful of examples of presidents who have reduced the size of national monuments, but no president has tried to eliminate one entirely. President Franklin Roosevelt asked his attorney general for a legal opinion on the subject in 1938 and was told there was no such legal authority.

“The Executive can no more destroy his own authorized work, without some other legislative sanction, than any other person can,” Attorney General Homer Cummings wrote in 1938. “To assert such a principle is to claim for the Executive the power to repeal or alter an act of Congress at will.”

Trump would face another legal fight if he tried to unilaterally decertify a monument. It’s possible that, once Zinke completes his review, the president will ask Congress to decertify one or more monuments.

As part of that review, the Interior Department is soliciting public comments. The deadline to comment on Bears Ears is Friday, with a July 10 deadline for other targeted monuments. You can submit your views at regulations.gov.

Our view is clear: The president should leave Berryessa Stone Mountain and these other treasurers intact as part of our national heritage.