Trump Targets Obama’s 550 Million Acre Monument Grab

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday tasking the Department of Interior with reviewing the millions of acres of land his three predecessors conserved as national monuments using The Antiquities Act of 1906.

Former President Barack Obama, in particular, radically expanded the way the Act was used to set aside approximately 550 million acres of land and water, which far exceeded former President George W. Bush’s approximately 218 million acres. Calling Obama’s excessive use of the Act an “egregious abuse” of federal power, Trump vowed to “eliminate wasteful regulations” and return power to the states because “it’s the right thing to do.”

“Every day we are going to continue pushing ahead with our reform agenda to put the American people back in charge of their government and their lives.”

“The Antiquities Act does not give the federal government unlimited power to lock up millions of acres of land and water. And it’s time we ended this abusive practice,” Trump said. “Every day we are going to continue pushing ahead with our reform agenda to put the American people back in charge of their government and their lives.”

By directing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review the Act’s designations over the past two decades, the president said he is following through on a campaign promise to pull back excessive regulations.

Trump specifically targeted Obama’s designation of the Bears Ears National monument and former President Bill Clinton’s designation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument — both in Utah. Trump suggested both could be opened up to energy exploration.

“In the first 100 days we’ve taken historic action to eliminate wasteful regulations. They’re being eliminated like nobody’s ever seen before. There’s never been anything like it,” Trump insisted. “We’re returning power back to the people.”

Congressional Democrats were quick to criticize the order. Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), in particular, complained that Trump doesn’t have “the legal authority” to enact this executive order and resigned past designations.

“If he attempts to do so, I will fight him every step of the way,” Udall vowed. “Today’s order represents yet another broken promise from President Trump. On the campaign trail, the president pledged to carry on the conservationist legacy of Teddy Roosevelt. But today he is beginning the process of going where no president before him has.”

Udall, notably, made no such protests over Obama’s unprecedented use of the Antiquities Act to conserve such large swaths of territory through executive action.

The president pointed to “the importance of the nation’s wealth of natural resources to American workers and the American economy.”

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“We’ve eliminated job-destroying regulations on farmers, ranchers, and coal miners, on autoworkers and so many other American workers and businesses,” Trump added. “Today I’m signing a new executive order to end another egregious abuse of federal power and to give that power back to the states and to the people, where it belongs.”

Trump noted that Obama used the Act to “unilaterally put millions of acres of land and water under strict federal control” in a manner that infringed on the people’s own ability “to decide how best to use that land” in their states. Calling Obama’s actions a “massive federal land-grab,” the president said it has only “gotten worse, and worse, and worse.”

“And now we’re going to free it up, which is what should have happened in the first place. This should never have happened,” Trump reiterated. “That’s why today I’m signing this order and directing Secretary Zinke to end these abuses and return control to the people.”