ABC News(WASHINGTON) — President Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order calling for a review of lands designated as national monuments, saying the practice had turned into a “massive federal land grab.”
The review will focus on millions of acres of land that have been designated as national monuments.
He criticized the previous administration’s decision to put “over 265 million acres … under federal control through the abuse of the monuments designation.”
“The Antiquities Act does not give the federal government unlimited power to lock up millions of acres of land and water,” he said, citing the 1906 law that authorizes presidents to declare land as a federal monument that then restricts its use.
He added that it was “time to end this abusive practice” that he said has “gotten worse and worse.”
The executive order was a step “to end another egregious abuse of federal power and to give that power back to the states and to the people where it belongs,” Trump, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, said during a brief ceremony.
Trump also praised the work of the Department of the Interior, saying they appreciate “the splendor and the beauty of America’s natural resources.”
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