President Joe Biden has created more national monuments in a single term than any president since Jimmy Carter left office in 1981. Now, environmental advocates and tribes are pressing him to do even more before his time in the White House comes to a close.
After President Donald Trump shrunk the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante monuments in Utah, one of Biden’s first agenda items was restoring them.
“And because of that, he really started thinking about monuments right from the get-go,” said Justin Pidot, a professor at the University of Arizona College of Law who worked in the Biden and Obama administrations. “So, you see much more activity than you usually see during the first term.”
Presidents have broad power to designate national monuments under the 1906 Antiquities Act to protect “natural, historical and scientific resources” on federal lands. Since then, most presidents of both parties have used their authority under the act to preserve lands.
Biden has created six new monuments and expanded two more, totaling 1.6 million acres.
Pidot said he’s had a particular emphasis on protections called for by tribes.
“More so than we've ever seen before, President Biden's monuments have been informed by, and often requested by, tribes to protect sacred lands or sacred places and parts of their homelands,” he said.
That includes Avi Kwa Ame established last year in Nevada, a site central to the creation story of 10 Yuman-speaking tribes.
Tribes are advocating for three new national monuments in California before Biden leaves office, noting that a second Trump Administration could resume monument reductions and bring a broader challenge to the century-old Antiquities Act itself.
Local campaigns are also pushing for the protection of the Owyhee Canyonlands on the border of Oregon and Idaho and the Dolores Canyons in southwest Colorado. Pidot said that pitches with support from tribal or local congressmembers tend to be ones that presidents take seriously. However, local opposition could play a role, too.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
