National Monuments Can Now Be Erased, Justice Department Rules

A memo that could unravel a century of protections.

We just emerged from a blissful serviceless area of the Mendocino National Forest or else this email would’ve hit your inbox sooner.

Just last week, we marked the 119th anniversary of the Antiquities Act. We called it a kind of secular scripture. A promise that not everything in this country would be stripped, sold, and discarded for profit.

Today, the Justice Department issued a legal opinion that threatens all of it and every single national monument with it.

It reverses 119 years of settled precedent. It opens the door for monuments to be erased entirely. It says the protections we thought were permanent are not.

This is a follow-up we wish we didn’t have to write.