June 18, 2020 — Environmental groups are suing President Trump over a decision to open a national marine monument off the coast of southern New England to commercial fishing, arguing the president’s proclamation violates federal law.
The president announced the decision during a June 5 visit to Maine.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., says that under the U.S. Antiquities Act a president can only create protections for national monuments and does not have the right to remove them – only Congress can.
In a statement Wednesday, Bob Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities, a fishing industry advocacy group, noted that the proclamation will still require commercial fishing to be managed under the Magunson-Stevens Act, a federal law governing marine fisheries, and does not modify the monument in any other way.
“(The Conservation Law Foundation) argues that President Trump’s modification of the monument created by President Obama is illegal,” Vanasse said. “But President Obama exercised the power to modify monuments created by his predecessors to expand Pacific marine monuments created by President Bush.
“It would seem that CLF’s position is that it is legal for a president to modify monuments created by a predecessor when CLF agrees with the modification, but illegal when CLF disagrees with the modification.”