Justice Department Paves Way To Rein In Federal Land Grabs

The Justice Department (DOJ) said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump has the authority to revoke national monument designations made by previous presidents, including two massive tracts of land in California that former President Joe Biden locked off from development.

The new legal opinion issued by the DOJ disputes a 1938 ruling that stated monuments designated by previous presidents cannot be undone. The opinion provides a pathway for potentially reducing the amount of federally-controlled land, a policy priority that the Trump administration has hinted at for months.

Under the Antiquities Act, presidents have the authority to “declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments.” However, previous rulings limited the president’s ability to reverse those declarations.

“If the President can declare that his predecessor was wrong regarding the value of preserving one such object on a given parcel, there is nothing preventing him from declaring that his predecessor was wrong about all such objects on a given parcel,” the opinion read.

The opinion singled out the 624,000-acre Chuckwalla National Monument and the 225,000-acre Sáttítla Highlands National Monument in California, which Biden designated in 2025 just before leaving office. Biden’s declaration prevented the extraction of oil, gas, and other natural resources, but the latest DOJ ruling states that Trump can revoke his predecessor’s proclamation.

During his first term, Trump reduced the size of two national monuments in Utah. At the time, he argued that state and local management would be more effective than federal oversight.

“Your timeless bond with the outdoors should not be replaced with the whims of regulators thousands and thousands of miles away,” Trump said at the time. “I’ve come to Utah to take a very historic action to reverse federal overreach and restore the rights of this land to your citizens.”

However, critics argue that such a change would destroy lands with cultural and scientific significance.

“This opinion flies in the face of a century of interpretation of the Antiquities Act. Americans overwhelmingly support our public lands and oppose seeing them dismantled or destroyed,” the Wilderness Society said in a press release in response to the DOJ opinion.

Federal lands are especially concentrated in western states, where roughly 46% of the land was federally owned as of 2020.