President Biden does not have the power to unilaterally destroy small businesses, local economies, and long traditions just because they are tied to federal land. Yet he has claimed the authority to do just that.
Rather than work through Congress, President Biden last year declared that over 3 million acres of land in southern Utah — more than twice the size of Delaware — would now constitute two “national monuments.” He based this extravagant claim on the Antiquities Act, a modest statute that Congress enacted in 1906 so presidents could reserve small tracts of land to protect “Pueblo ruins” and other historically or geologically significant objects.
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