But Kristen Brengel, senior VP of govt affairs at the #NationalParks #Conservation Association, noted Roosevelt himself used the #law to #protect the huge swath of #land that later became #GrandCanyon National Park.

“He stood on the rim of the Grand Canyon & said he was going to protect it, & then he did,” she said.

Signed into #law by President Theodore Roosevelt, the #AntiquitiesAct of 1906 gives presidents vast powers to #protect #lands & #waters through the creation of #NationalMonuments. But the law is quiet on whether presidents can remove designations set by their predecessors.

The Bureau of Land Management administers ~17k square miles of national monuments in the West….

Other performance metrics include removing #protections for #EndangeredSpecies that have *recovered* & restoring “historic [racist] names” to #landmarks. On his first day back in office, #Trump stripped #NorthAmerica’s tallest mountain of its #Indigenous name, #Denali, & restored its previous title, Mount McKinley.

The draft strategic plan spells out the #Trump admin’s #Interior Dept’s priorities through 2030, which include increasing production of #FossilFuels, opening #lands in #Alaska & elsewhere to #minerals extraction, reducing grazing costs & trying to “release” federal holdings for housing #development.

While #Interior ofcls declined to comment about any potential monument review, the approach was outlined in a “strategic plan draft framework” shared w/ WaPo. One of the dept’s “potential performance measures” going forward, acc/to the document, will be making sure #NationalMonuments are “assessed & *correctly* sized.”

“They opened up Grand Staircase under the previous [#Trump] administration & the #coal market did not rush in, the #oil & #gas market did not rush in, nobody rushed in,” said Tracy Stone-Manning, who led #Interior’s Bureau of #Land Management under #Biden. “There are plenty of #minerals elsewhere. This is about an #ideological battle.”

#Conservation & #Indigenous advocates argue that there is little demand to develop those resources & that the #NationalMonuments represent vital #ecological & #sacred cultural reserves that local communities fought for years to #protect.

In 2021, #SCOTUS Chief Justice #JohnRoberts invited litigants to challenge how presidents of both parties have used the #law to ban commercial activities in vast stretches of #land & #ocean.

The law limits presidents to protecting “the smallest area compatible with the care & management,” Roberts wrote. “Somewhere along the line, however, this restriction has ceased to pose any meaningful restraint.”

#Interior aides are looking at whether to scale back at least 6 #NationalMonuments, said these individuals…. The list, they added, includes Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the #GrandCanyon, Ironwood Forest, Chuckwalla, Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, Bears Ears & Grand Staircase-Escalante—national monuments spread across #Arizona, #California, #NewMexico & #Utah.

#Trump officials are analyzing whether to remove federal #protections for #NationalMonuments spanning millions of acres in the West, according to two people familiar with the matter and an internal #Interior Department document, in order to spur #energy development on #PublicLands.

#land #conservation #habitats #ecosystems #wildlife #FossilFuels #ClimateChange #EnvironmentalLaw #law

This finding underscores the profound #interconnectedness of all life forms & the unintended consequences of human actions. The presence of #microplastics in #natural habitats decades ago illustrates how human-made materials have permeated #ecosystems, affecting even the most unassuming creatures. (2/3)