When one reviews the language in the Antiquities Act, Presidents can make monuments, but in the language of the actual act, they must be the smallest area possible. This act has been abused….by both sides of the political spectrum.
Hundreds of millions of acres are now off-limits to a wide variety of public land uses.
From the text of the actual act:
§320301. National monuments
(a) Presidential Declaration.—The President may, in the President’s discretion, declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated on land owned or controlled by the Federal Government to be national monuments.
(b) Reservation of Land.—The President may reserve parcels of land as a part of the national monuments. The limits of the parcels shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.
Like most laws, acts and bills, they all seem to morph into something they were never intended to be.
Here is an article from Free Range Report which shows just how corrupt this process was on the 1.9 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM) in 1996.
Let this sentence taken from the article sink in a bit……….:
Bishop pointed to another memo in which Clinton’s Council on Environmental Quality Chair, Kathleen McGinty, candidly admitted that “these lands are not really endangered.”
http://freerangereport.com/index.php/2017/12/18/testimony-reveals-dirty-dealings-behind-clinton-monument-designation/
For the complete article, clickhttp://freerangereport.com/index.php/2017/12/18/testimony-reveals-dirty-dealings-behind-clinton-monument-designation/