Monument Size: In establishing a national monument, the President is required by the Antiquities Act to reserve “the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”18 Many monuments have been quite small, but several Presidents have established large monuments. Examples of large monuments include Katmai, established in 1918 with 1.1 million acres; Glacier Bay, created in 1925 with 1.4 million acres; most of the Alaska monuments proclaimed in 1978, the largest being Wrangell-St. Elias, with nearly 11 million acres; and Grand Staircase-Escalante, established in 1996 with 1.7 million acres. Most recently, President George W. Bush established large marine monuments, namely the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, with approximately 89 million acres; the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument, with 60.9 million acres; the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, with 55.6 million acres; and the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument, with 8.6 million acres.19 The Bush Administration claimed that the latter three areas formed the largest protected ocean area in the world.20 Critics assert that large monuments violate the Antiquities Act, in that the President’s authority regarding size was intended to be narrow and limited. They charge that Congress intended the act to protect specific items of interest, especially archaeological sites and the small areas surrounding them. They support this view with the legislative history of the act, in which proposals to limit a withdrawal to 320 or 640 acres were mentioned but not enacted. They contend that some of the monument designations were greater than needed to protect particular objects of value, and that the law was not intended to protect large swaths of land or ocean. Defenders observe that the Antiquities Act gives the President discretion to determine the acreage necessary to ensure protection of the resources in question, which can be a particular archaeological site or larger features or resources. The Grand Canyon, for example, originally was a national monument measuring 0.8 million acres; President Theodore Roosevelt determined that this large size was necessary to protect the “object” in question—the canyon. Defenders also note that after considering the issue in the early 1900s, Congress deliberately rejected proposals to restrict the President’s authority to set the size of the withdrawal. Further, they assert that preserving objects of interest may require withdrawal of sizeable tracts of surrounding land to preserve the integrity of the objects and the interactions and relationships among them. The courts have deferred to the President’s judgment as to the proper size for a monument. For example, the lawsuit challenging the Grand Sequoia National Monument was based in part on the 17 Cappaert v. United States, 426 U.S. 128 (1976) (regarding Death Valley National Monument); High Country Citizens’ Alliance v. Norton, 448 F. Supp. 2d 1235 (D. Colo. 2006) (referring to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument). 1816 U.S.C. § 431. 19 All monument sizes listed are approximate. Also, the sizes of marine monuments typically have been identified in square miles, rather than acres. A square mile is equal to 640 acres. 20 For information on protection of ocean areas, including current issues, programs, and administrative and congressional action, see CRS Report RL32154, Marine Protected Areas: An Overview, by Harold F. Upton and Eugene H. Buck. Congressional Research Service 4 National Monuments and the Antiquities Act monument’s size (327,769 acres) not being “the smallest area compatible with proper care and management,” as required by the act.21 The court found no factual basis for the argument that the size did not meet the standards of the act.
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 06:12:37 +0000
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