To Permanently Unleash our Federal Lands, Congress Must Reform the Antiquities Act – Watts Up With That?

By William Rampe

After four years of the Biden administration doing everything in its power to keep our natural resources in the ground, President Trump and Congressional Republicans have made a concerted effort to get the most out of our federal lands and waters.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act marked an important step in this regard by mandating increased lease sales and reducing royalty rates for natural gas, oil, and coal. Following suit, the Bureau of Land Management overturned Biden’s Public Lands rule—a regulation that effectively treated “no use” as a legitimate option for federal land, in direct conflict with the multiple-use mandate established by the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act.

Growing electricity demand from artificial intelligence (AI), electrification, and data centers requires increased reliable energy production so that we can meet these needs without increasing prices for consumers. Federal lands and water play an important role in this production, supplying 24% of total domestic oil and 11% of total domestic natural gas production, according to a 2022 calculation by the American Petroleum Institute, while also holding critical minerals needed for key technologies. 

Expanding access to federal lands for energy production positions the U.S. to meet future energy demands, and President Trump and Congressional Republicans deserve credit for the progress made so far. The greater challenge lies in ensuring this progress endures. If Republicans lose the White House in 2028, a Democratic successor could swiftly block energy development on vast areas of federal land by declaring them national monuments.

This authority stems from the Antiquities Act of 1906, signed by President Teddy Roosevelt, which grants presidents unilateral power to designate federal land as national monuments with limited oversight. Under this law, administrations have restricted production and development without approval from Congress or input from local communities.

The Antiquities Act was established with the intention of closing off small areas of historic or scientific interest in the West from desecration and looting; however, presidents have continuously gone beyond its “smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected” requirement to close off federal lands with the intention of foreclosing commercial activity.

The first of these instances came only two years after the Act was established: in 1908, Roosevelt proclaimed 818,560 acres of Arizona Territory as the Grand Canyon National Monument to prevent a trolley line from being built. Although the territory had been a forest reserve since 1893, the monument declaration restricted the land further by banning new mines on the territory.

Many uses of the Antiquities Act have drawn the ire of local politicians and communities in Western states, ranging from Wyoming and Utah to Alaska and Hawaii. In 2010, the New York Times commented on the “vitriol [unleashed] among Western conservatives” by the word “monument.” 

The vitriol Westerners have against monument designations aligns with their economic impact; a 2013 study on President Bill Clinton’s establishment of the 1.7 million acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah found that its creation led to a $146 million reduction in decade-to-decade growth in total nonfarm payrolls for nearby Kane and Garfield counties, largely due to losing access to large coal and oil deposits. Another study examined the impact of President Obama’s 2016 expansion of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument from 89,600,00 acres to 372,849,920 acres on Hawaii’s longline fishing industry, finding that it led to a 9% decrease in revenue per trip for boats that used to use the area.

In his first term, President Trump recognized the Antiquities Act’s harm and shrank Grand Staircase and Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, later opening both up to mining and drilling. However, the Biden administration was quick to reinstate these boundaries a year into his term. Overall, Biden closed off over 674 million acres of federal lands and waters from production during his presidency, bolstering his self-proclaimed “legacy of conservation.” It’s easy to see how a future Democratic administration could go even further, using the Antiquities Act to score the political points that come with the conservationist label without any input from locals or votes in Congress.

The Antiquities Act, in its current form, leaves communities vulnerable to sweeping land-use restrictions and injects dangerous uncertainty into America’s energy future. It empowers presidents to shut down access to vital resources with the stroke of a pen, undermining jobs, local economies, and the nation’s ability to meet rising energy demand.

To secure the progress already made in opening land to energy production, Congress must act. Reforms like those proposed by Utah Senators Mike Lee and John Curtis would restore balance by requiring congressional approval for monument designations. Congressional approval wouldn’t be a kill switch against federal overreach in land-use decisions, but it would make monument designations dependent on more steps than the whim of a president.

If the U.S. is to meet the challenges of the future, powering AI, electrification, data centers, and beyond, we cannot allow unchecked executive authority to lock away the resources needed to get there. Permanently unleashing America’s federal lands will require Congress to reform the Antiquities Act.

William Rampe is a Policy Analyst at the Institute for Energy Research.

This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.

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