On a new episode of Versus Trump, Easha and Jason discuss several lawsuits filed over President Trump's recent Proclamation that substantially cuts the size of two National Monuments: Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante, both in Utah. As usual, you can listen online below, and subscribe here with any podcast player or here in iTunes.

They begin the discussion by discussing what national monuments are, how they can be designated under the Anitiquities Act of 1906, and how the President decided to shrink the boundaries of these two national monuments. They discuss the argument in several recent lawsuits that the Antiquities Act permits a President to declare new land to be a national monument but does not permit the President to unilaterally remove that land from its proected status—and their respective positions on the merits of the suit may be somewhat surprising to regular listeners. They then update the status of the lawsuits and note that the government has moved to transfer all of these cases to a federal court in Utah. The episode ends with Trump nuggets about the volume of public opinions from the OLC and some new info about the now-disbanded voter fraud commission.

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Links

• Easha mentioned that Patagonia has created a helpful website with maps showing the land impacted by the President's recent actions. That is here.
• Earthjustice also has a very helpful page about the lawsuits here.
• The Presidential Proclamation about Grand Staircase-Escalante is here. The environmental groups' complaint is here.
• The Presidential Proclamation about Bears Ears is here. The environmental groups' complaint is here.
• Helpful posts on Take Care by Michael Burger and Caroline Cox are here and here.
• Articles Jason and Easha mentioned that support the President's authority to modify monuments is here at AEI, and here by Richard Seamon.
• The most recent Congressional Research Service report on this issue, which mentions the 1938 opinion discussed in the show, is here.
• Jason talked in his Trump nugget about public OLC opinions. You can find them here.

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