Monday, Jul 6, 2020
Did the Trump Administration reduce the size of two national monuments?
The Trump Administration cut the size of two national monuments in southern Utah designated by previous administrations.
An Interior Department report notes previous presidents reduced the size of various monuments 16 times. It cites provisions in the 1906 Antiquities Act that monuments may be "confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected."
Lawsuits by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other plaintiffs dispute the Administration's position, saying authority to reduce the size of a monument lies solely with Congress. Both cases are proceeding in D.C. District Court.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
- National Geographic: What Trump's shrinking of national monuments actually means
- Department of the Interior: Memo on review of the Antiquities Act
- National Park Service: American Antiquities Act of 1906
- Natural Resources Defense Council: Bears Ears lawsuit status
- NRDC: Grand Staircase-Escalante lawsuit status
- Center for Growth and Opportunity: Executive discretion and the antiquities act
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Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network.
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Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
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