美国国家公共电台 NPR Was It 'Illegal' For Trump To Shrink Utah's Monuments? The Battle Begins

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

All right, President Trump 1 has dramatically scaled back two large areas of land that had been designated national monuments in Utah. But a battle over his authority to do this may be just beginning. Native American tribes and conservation groups are mounting legal challenges even as the administration considers shrinking half a dozen more monuments in other states. Here's NPR's Kirk Siegler.

KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE 2: Before President Trump even finished his triumphal visit to Utah yesterday, the first lawsuits 3 were being filed. At the center of this sagebrush battle is a relatively 4 obscure federal law called the Antiquities 5 Act. Signed by President Teddy Roosevelt in 1906, it was intended to stop the pilfering 6 of ancient Indian artifacts from public land. But it also gave presidents the authority to create national monuments on their own without Congress. Here in Utah, where about two-thirds of the entire state is federally owned, and there are seven large monuments, this act is a household name. And in some rural areas, it's a dirty word.

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RYAN ZINKE: I've become an expert in monuments.

SIEGLER: Here's President Trump's Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke speaking at the Utah Capitol yesterday.

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ZINKE: And the Antiquities Act was never intended to prevent. It was intended to protect.

SIEGLER: When the administration began its controversial review of 27 large monuments, including Utah's Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, it said the act needed to be tested. Tribes and conservationists have been preparing lawsuits for months.

ETHEL BRANCH: There is nothing in the Antiquities Act that authorizes 7 the president to modify a national monument once it's been designated.

SIEGLER: This is Ethel Branch, attorney general for the Navajo Nation, one of the tribes suing the administration. The tribes point to a federal lands law from the 1970s that says only Congress can actually reduce or nullify a national monument. Previous presidents have made small reductions to monument boundaries but never until yesterday had one used the Antiquities Act to so dramatically shrink them.

BRANCH: There is not room for a subsequent president to come in and second-guess that authority.

SIEGLER: But there's another tricky 8 issue here. The Antiquities Act also expressly states that presidents should protect the important sites while using the smallest amount of land possible. That's partly why there was so much opposition 9 to Bears Ears, which originally was 1.3 million acres in size.

BRUCE ADAMS: It was more about control than it was about protection.

SIEGLER: San Juan County Commission Chairman Bruce Adams is ecstatic that President Trump is trying to shrink monuments across the rural West. He says these designations take everything off the table, like expanding cattle grazing or mining.

ADAMS: He listened to the local people even though they weren't millions of voters, only 15,000 people in our community. He understands what rural communities are about.

SIEGLER: The administration is also considering shrinking national monuments in states like Nevada and Oregon. If they press forward, more legal challenges are sure to follow.

Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Salt Lake City.

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