Seek repeal of the Antiquities Act
What the document says“the new Administration must seek repeal of the Antiquities Act of 1906”
The Antiquities Act lets a President designate national monuments by proclamation. The chapter argues it permitted emergency action before statutory authority existed to protect special federal lands, and that in recent years Congress has designated as monuments the areas deserving it. It separately says the Trump review of monument designations was insufficient because only two monuments in one state were adjusted, names Maine and Oregon as places where downward adjustments should have followed, and asks that such adjustments be vigorously defended to obtain a Supreme Court ruling on a President's authority to shrink a monument.
What the document actually says“the new Administration must seek repeal of the Antiquities Act of 1906”
The next team must try to repeal this old law. It dates from 1906.
A 1906 law lets a president protect land by proclamation. Those places are called national monuments. The book says Congress should do that job instead. It wants the law repealed.
Modifying the Bears Ears National Monument
2026-07-13 · 91 FR 45169
Proclamation 11043 reduces the Bears Ears National Monument, and Proclamation 11044 of the same day, July 13, 2026, does the same for Grand Staircase-Escalante. Both use the Antiquities Act rather than seeking its repeal, reasoning that objects named in the prior proclamations are generic or common and that the reservations exceeded the smallest area compatible with their care. They answer the chapter's complaint that the earlier review adjusted too little, and they answer it in the same place the chapter called insufficient: two monuments in one state, Utah, with nothing done in Maine or Oregon. The act itself remains in force and no repeal has been sought.
Two proclamations of July 13, 2026 shrink two national monuments in Utah. Both use the Antiquities Act rather than seeking its repeal. They answer the chapter's claim that an earlier review cut too little. But the act stays in force, and no repeal has been sought.