Tue Apr 23rd, On Environmental Law, by John Bick
On April 17, 2019, in ongoing consolidated cases in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, the Federal defendants released responses to briefs of amici curiae. The Federal defendants continued to argue that the Antiquities Act of 1906 grants President Trump the authority to reduce the size of national monuments. The plaintiffs in two consolidated cases (Hopi Tribe, et al., v. Donald J. Trump and Utah Diné Bikéyah, et al., v. Donald J. Trump and Stair Escalante Partners, et al., v. Donald J. Trump and The Wilderness Society, et al., v. Donald J. Trump) challenge President Trump’s action to reduce the sizes of the Grand Stair-Escalante National Monument and the Bears Ears National Monument. The Trump administration shrank the Bears Ears National Monument by 85 percent, from 1.35 million acres to 201, 876 acres, and cut the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by almost half, from 1,880,46 acres to 1,003,863 acres.