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Although the new President should vacate that order, DOI under a conservative President must take immediate action on the 30 by 30 plan by vacating a secretarial order issued by the Biden DOI” that eliminated the Trump Administration’s requirement for the approval of state and local governments before federal acquisition of private property with monies from the Land and Water Conservation Fund.”

National Monument Designations. As has every Democratic President before him beginning with Jimmy Carter, Joe Biden has abused his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906. Like the outrageous, unilateral withdrawals from public use of multiple use federal land under the Carter, Clinton, and Obama Administrations, Biden’s first national monument was one in Colorado—adopted over the objections of scores of local groups and at least one American Indian tribe.” In the days before the 2024 election, Biden will likely designate more western monuments.

Although President Trump courageously ordered a review of national monument designations, the result of that review was insufficient in that only two national monuments in one state (Utah) were adjusted.”” Monuments in Maine and Oregon, for example, should have been adjusted downward given the finding of Secretary Ryan Zinke’s review that they were improperly designated. The new Administration’s review will permit a fresh look at past monument decrees and new ones by President Biden.

Furthermore, the new Administration must vigorously defend the downward adjustments it makes to permit a ruling on a President’s authority to reduce the size of national monuments by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Finally, the new Administration must seek repeal of the Antiquities Act of 1906, which permitted emergency action by a President long before the statutory authority existed for the protection of special federal lands, such as those with wild and scenic rivers, endangered specials, or other unique places. Moreover, in recent years, Congress has designated as national monuments those areas deserving of such congressional action.

Oregon and California Lands Act. One national monument worthy of downward adjustment is in Oregon, where its designation and subsequent expansion interfere with the federal obligation to residents to harvest timber on its BLM lands. A federal district court ruled in 2019 that land subject to the Oregon and California (O&C) Grant Lands Act of 193773 was set aside by Congress to be harvested for the benefit of the people of Oregon. Specifically, those federal lands are to be “managed...for permanent forest production” and its timber “sold, cut, and removed in conformity with the princip[le] of sustained yield.””

As the district court concluded,” beginning in 1990, the federal government erected a trifecta of illegal barriers to the accomplishment of the congressional mandate, beginning with a response to the listing of the northern spotted owl,” continuing a decade later with the designation of the Cascade- Siskiyou National Monument,” and concluding in 2017 with an expansion of that monument.” In