June 10, 2020 — Environmentalists are vowing they will sue to reinstate fishery closures to a marine national monument 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod that President Donald Trump removed by executive order last Friday at a meeting held in Maine.
The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument was created by President Barack Obama in 2016 using the Antiquities Act of 1906, a process President George W. Bush used to create a national marine monument off Hawaii in 2006, as well as 15 presidents dating back to Theodore Roosevelt. The Antiquities Act was used, proponents said, because it can be put in place more quickly than fisheries regulations that can take years, if not decades, to be implemented. Also, the protections are in theory permanent, whereas other fisheries regulations are often amended.
“We’re taking them to court,” said Peter Shelley, senior counsel at the Conservation Law Foundation. “It’s a matter of putting the paperwork together and getting the strongest case possible.”
“It’s very clear that the president can establish these areas, but he has no authority to modify or remove them,” said Gib Brogan, fisheries campaign manager at Oceana.
Similar cases are being fought around two other national monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, both in southern Utah. Trump stripped both monuments of federal protections by dramatically reducing them in size in December 2017 to allow for mineral extraction, mining, and off-road use.
Brad Sewell, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s oceans division, said his organization also intends to challenge the Northeast Canyons rollback in court.