The President Can Abolish National Monuments, DOJ Says—and Names Two for Potential Rollback

The Department of Justice says the president has the authority to revoke national monument designations—and it’s already identified two that could be on the chopping block: Sáttítla Highlands and Chuckwalla National Monument, both created by President Joe Biden in the final days of his term.

The conclusion comes in a newly released 50-page document sent to the White House by the General Office of Legal Counsel on May 27 and publicized on June 10. In the memo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora C. Pettit cites previous changes presidents made to national monuments in the early part of the 20th century and Congress’s general lack of objection to them to argue that the White House can and should revoke previous presidents’ national monument designations made under the Antiquities Act. The conclusion contradicts the Justice Department’s previous stance that presidents can name but not shrink or revoke national monuments, which it has held since then-Attorney General Homer Cummings expressed it in 1938 while considering a proposal to shrink Castle Pinckney National Monument.

Notably, the memo names two national monuments that the administration is considering cutting: Sáttítla Highlands in the Cascade Range of Northern California and Chuckwalla National Monument, just south of Joshua Tree National Park. Former President Joe Biden designated both in January 2025. While the Trump administration has mostly avoided naming which monuments it intends to target, this memo, along with recent reporting from the Washington Post, offers the clearest signal yet. The Post previously revealed that the administration is also eyeing cuts to Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon, Ironwood Forest, Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, Bears Ears, and Grand Staircase-Escalante, in what appears to be part of a broader push to open federal lands to drilling and mining.

Krystian Lahage, the public policy officer for the Mojave Desert Land Trust, said that Chuckwalla’s 624,270 acres protect a host of endemic animals. Two-thirds of it is critical habitat for California’s state reptile, the endangered desert tortoise. It also contains historic sites that are important to local Native tribes, including the Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Mojave, Quechan, and Serrano people. Besides that, the area is host to popular hikes like the Chuckwalla Mountain and Painted Canyon trails, off-grid backpacking opportunities, stargazing, and birding spots.

Lahage says he doesn’t believe there is any oil or critical minerals within the boundaries of the monument. In contrast, he says, there is an ongoing need for more protected open space in the deserts of southern California.

“This is an area that opens up this vast public land and public space, so that folks can have more opportunities to recreate, to preserve their cultural history,” he said. “Should development happen, it’s not just that hikers and conservationists aren’t going to benefit from this monument anymore. If you’re an OHV driver and you have a favorite trail, [like] the Bradshaw Trail, and there’s a development, you’re going to have inhibited access. That goes to any other form of recreation you can think of that occurs in the monument. So the real threat here is just this loss of of a resource to the community.” Lahage points out that Chuckwalla has enjoyed broad support from both the community and local elected officials on both sides of the aisle.

While the memo outlines the administration’s position, the president’s ability to reduce or revoke national monument designations is largely untested and is likely to face court challenges. In particular, Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, which former President Barack Obama named in 2016, has been a flashpoint. State officials have consistently advocated for its disestablishment; in contrast, a coalition of the five tribal governments that lobbied for its creation, outdoor industry giant Patagonia, and several nonprofits sued the government after the first Trump administration reduced its size upon taking office in 2021. Robert Keiter, Wallace Stegner Professor of Law at the University of Utah, told Backpacker in an interview last December that while there’s more precedent to stop a president from completely undoing a monument designation that modifying it, the legal ambiguity at the heart of the debate has yet to be resolved.

“There are very strong arguments on behalf of the environmental and tribal plaintiffs for a court to rule that the president does not have discretion to modify or revoke a national monument designation,” Keiter said. “But there’s also precedent for presidents having a great deal of discretionary authority, and we simply do not have any judicial decision even now on this particular point, of modification of a prior president’s national monument designation.”