Trump Orders Review of 1906 Monument Law to Help Oil, Mining

By Ari Natter, Bloomberg News

President Donald Trump ordered a review of as many as 40 large national monuments that have been declared over the past two decades, beginning a process that could lead to the repeal of protections for those lands and new opportunities for oil and mining companies.

Trump gave Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke 45 days to come up with an initial determination on which, if any, monument declarations issued under the 1906 Antiquities Act should be redrawn or repealed. He called the use of the presidential protections an “egregious abuse” of power from Washington, and vowed to ...