DOJ Claims Trump Can Revoke National Monuments Designation

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Tuesday that former President Donald Trump holds the authority to revoke national monument designations established by his predecessor, including two designated areas in California.

This new legal opinion challenges a 1938 ruling from the DOJ, which maintained that a sitting president could not overturn designations made by earlier presidents. The implication here is that fewer federally controlled lands could be a possibility, a point that aligns with the policy goals of the Trump administration, which had hinted at such changes over the past few months.

According to existing law, the President is empowered to “declare by historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historical or scientific interest located on land owned or controlled by the US government to make it a national monument.” However, earlier interpretations had limited the ability of a president to reverse these declarations.

“If the President can declare that his predecessor was wrong regarding the value of storing such objects in a particular parcel, then there is nothing to prevent his predecessor from declaring he is wrong about all such objects in that parcel,” the legal opinion states.

This opinion specifically addresses the 624,000-acre Chuckwalla National Monument and the 225,000-acre Sattila Highlands National Monument in California, which were designated by President Joe Biden in early 2025. Biden’s actions have restricted the extraction of oil, gas, and various natural resources in these areas, but the latest ruling from the DOJ now suggests that Trump could nullify those declarations.

During his first term, Trump had already reduced the size of two national monuments in Utah. He argued at the time that state and local management could be more effective than federal governance. “The timeless bond with the outdoors should not be replaced by the whims of regulators thousands of miles away,” he stated then. “I’ve come to Utah and come to take very historic actions to revive the federal government’s retrograde and restore the rights of this land to your citizens.”

Nevertheless, critics warn that such reversals could jeopardize lands that hold cultural and scientific significance. “This opinion flies in the face of a century of interpretations of ancient law. Americans widely support our public lands and are opposed to their destruction,” said a representative from the Wilderness Association in response to the DOJ’s ruling.

Federal land ownership is notably high in Western states, with approximately 46% of the land in those areas owned by the federal government as of 2020.