Last year during our 12 days of Legal Updates, we shared our concerns about proposals to designate 9 national monuments that would lock up 5 million acres of public lands with substantial restrictions. If you recall at this time last year, President Biden had lost his reelection, and there was a substantial risk that he would lock up millions of acres on his way out.
We launched a #nolameducklandgrab campaign to oppose the designation of these nine monuments:
While we did rally a lot of opposition, President Biden ultimately designated the Chuckwalla National Monument and the Sáttítla National Monument on his way out the door— restricting nearly 850,000 acres. After these designations, the groups supporting these monuments let the cat out of the bag and said these monuments completed the Moab to Mojave Corridor, which locks up 18 million acres of public land along the Colorado River from Moab to the Mojave Desert.
Why National Monument Designations Matter
The Antiquities Act of 1906 is a short statute that gives the President authority to designate national monuments to protect “…historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest…”. The Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming is a prime example. The law was originally intended to safeguard discrete archaeological sites in the Southwest that were being looted, and it includes an explicit limitation requiring that any monument be “confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”
In practice, however, presidential use of the Act has expanded far beyond small, site-based protections. Modern monument proclamations encompass hundreds of thousands to millions of acres, with boundaries justified by broad landscape-scale “objects” such as ecosystems and viewsheds. As a result, the Act is now frequently used as a tool to set aside large areas of public land and restrict certain uses—far beyond the narrow, site-specific protections the text originally envisioned.
Once public land is designated as a National Monument, it’s no longer guided by multiple-use management required by Congress, but by protection. As we know, the rules for protection and conservation of large swaths of public land are often unsubstantiated and vague— which most often leads to heavy restrictions (if not banned altogether) of motorized-recreation, camping, hunting and fishing. Even if an activity isn’t banned on day one, monument management plans tend to tighten over time. Closures often arrive through planning processes rather than proclamations.
Thus, the Antiquities Act has become a tool that presidents abuse to bypass Congress, legitimate public process, and western communities in an effort to lock up land and prevent its use.
We were hopeful that the new Administration would take decisive action to end this abuse, and early Secretarial Orders from the Secretary of Interior signaled national monuments would be reviewed. Then in June, the Administration released a legal memo stating that presidents have the authority to shrink or rescind national monuments.
We believe these moves established a solid foundation for the current Administration to shrink or rescind abusive national monument designations.
While BRC is still waiting for a decision from the 10th Circuit court of Appeals for our challenge to the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments, we are also part of a new challenge to the Chuckwalla National Monument. We are honored to be joined in this lawsuit by Dan Torongo, who owns mining claims affected by the designation. Together we are represented by the legal team at Texas Public Policy Foundation, who have been strong allies in this fight.
On top of this, Congress has introduced the Ending Presidential Overreach on Public Lands Act, which would also limit abuse of the Antiquities Act. We encourage our members to support this legislation and to tell their representatives to support it as well.
The bottom line is we are fighting to reform the Antiquities Act in all three branches of government, because we’re not convinced that those who want to lock up our lands will ever be satisfied. This is why Volume 3: Monuments Edition of our Lost Trails Guidebook showcases a collection of trails that are at risk of closure if a future president were to keep designating the millions of acres of monuments that are currently proposed.
In honor of our fight to stop Antiquity Act abuses, for a limited time, all donations that click the link here will receive 50% bonus entries in our dirt bike & VIP Moab Trip Sweepstakes + a free copy of our Lost Trails Guidebook Vol 3: Monuments Edition. Or use promo code: 12-LTG3-50 on the form.
We always expected the fight to reign in the Antiquities Act to take years. At this point we think we have two strong cases in federal court that could lead to important precedents to reign in the abuse. As we head into 2026, we need to keep up the pressure to encourage the current administration to use newly recognized legal authority to reopen our public lands that have been erroneously designated. There is also the hope that Congress will Act and reassert their rightful Constitutional authority over federally-owned property.
We’ve made progress. Seven of the nine proposed monuments weren’t designated, and this was partly because of our pressure campaign.
But there is still a lot of work to be done.
SUPPORT OUR LEGAL CENTER
Our legal work is possible because of individual members and supporters like you. With your support, we were able to hire our first full-time attorney last year—leading to the most impactful period of legal success in our organization’s history. Your backing has empowered us to win critical battles for public access, but there’s more to challenge and anti-access groups continue to file lawsuits at an unprecedented rate. Continued support ensures we have the legal strength to defend our rights and keep our public lands open.
