Supreme Court urged to stop ‘land grab’ in establishing national monuments

Ranchers and farmers want the Supreme Court to decide whether the executive branch can supersede land use laws through the growing use of the Antiquities Act of 1906 to designate new national monuments.

In December, the Arizona Farm Bureau Federation and New Civil Liberties Alliance urged the court to review the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' decision in Murphy Company v. Biden, which upheld a presidential proclamation that the groups contend “contradicts congressionally mandated land use in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument” designation in Oregon that was made in 2000.

The National Cattlemen's Beef Association and Public Lands Council also have filed an amicus brief seeking review of the court decision.

The Oregon designation withdrew a major land use in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument by prohibiting commercial timber harvest, the groups said. 

Congress passed legislation in 1937 that designated certain timberlands in Oregon for “permanent forest production” to provide “a permanent source of timber supply” and to support local businesses and government, NCLA said.

“In recent decades, presidential monument designations under the Antiquities Act have grown in size and scope, often to the detriment of local communities,” Kara Rollins, NCLA litigation counsel, said in a statement. “While lower courts have been reluctant to review such designations, the Supreme Court should not be reticent. This case provides an excellent vehicle to address the conflict between presidential monument designations and Congress’s power to regulate use of this nation’s lands.”

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Chad Smith, Arizona Farm Bureau director of government relations, told Agri-Pulse Arizona landowners continue to deal with these “land grabs” that limit what they can do on private or federally controlled land. 

“We, especially here in the West, are so checkerboarded that you could certainly be limited on use of that land because of the national monument designation,” Smith said. Improvements needed for travel, roads and access all become more difficult when land is declared a national monument, he added.

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