By Wendy Culverwell / Tri-City Herald
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson pledged Thursday to defend the Hanford Reach National Monument and any other threatened Washington monument in court, saying the Antiquities Act of 1906 does not give presidents the authority to revoke monument status.
“I ask President Trump and Secretary (Ryan) Zinke to respect the legal limits of their powers,” said Ferguson, referencing a legal opinion that dates to the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“If President Trump attempts to harm Washington’s National Monuments, my office will defend them,” he said.
In an April executive order, Trump ordered the U.S. Department of the Interior to review 27 national monuments established in the past 20 years, including the Hanford Reach.
The Hanford Reach is the only Washington monument subject to review, though some fear the order is a prelude to deeper cuts to smaller monuments such as the San Juan Islands National Monument.
Ferguson, a Democrat, successfully challenged the president’s travel ban in federal court and later sued the government over its reversal on coal leasing on public lands.
Ferguson joins a growing list of Democrats in the state who see the executive order as a threat to national monuments. In a May 10 letter, U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell called on Zinke to leave the Hanford Reach alone.
Ferguson’s argument is based on a 1938 legal opinion by the U.S. Attorney General. It was issued after the White House, then occupied by FDR, was asked to revoke an apparently unwanted national monument designation involving a South Carolina Civil War site.
Robert Anderson, professor of public lands, natural resources and Indian affairs at the University of Washington School of Law, said the argument that presidents lack authority to revoke national monuments is enduring but untested in court.
Anderson, who worked on the Hanford Reach designation, said that will change if the Trump team moves to eliminate monuments.
“There are legal teams gearing up all over the country if he actually does engage in a revocation,” Anderson said.
Ferguson’s May 11 letter, addressed to the Secretary of the Interior, notes presidents from both political parties have employed the Antiquities Act to conserve iconic American landmarks.
“No President … has ever claimed the authority to revoke National Monument status,” Ferguson wrote. “The reason is simple: the Act does not contemplate any such revocation, and to do so would be contrary to the language of the statute and the structure in which the law delegates Congress’s constitutional authority.”
No president has revoked monument status, but plenty have reduced them.
Notably, President Woodrow Wilson cut 310,000 acres from the Mount Olympus National Monument, a 610,000-acre monument established on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula in 1909.
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The national monument was later converted into Olympic National Park, with FDR signing the legislation.
President Bill Clinton established the Hanford Reach National Monument in 2000, the final year of his presidency.
The 200,000-acre monument is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It is home to fish and wildlife and is an important cultural resource to a number of Native American communities.
Washington’s other national monuments include the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, established by President Ronald Reagan in 1982, and the San Juan Islands National Monument, established by President Barack Obama in 2013.
The government is accepting public comments on the national monuments for 60 days, beginning May 12.
Comments may be submitted at regulations.gov by entering “DOI-2017-0002” in the search bar and clicking “search,” or by mail to Monument Review, MS-1530, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1849 C Street N.W., Washington, DC 20240.
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