Utah Rep. Rob Bishop wants President-elect Donald Trump to roll back President Barack Obama's designations of millions of acres of land as national monuments.
"It's never been done before and that's why people are saying, 'You can't do it.' Of course you can. It's always been implied," the Republican lawmaker said, according to The Daily Caller.
Obama has used the Antiquities Act to put 265 million acres of public land under tighter federal control by turning them into national monuments, notes the Daily Caller. and he did so to preserve historic sites, landscapes and to keep them from being developed or harmed by global warming.
Trump's plans for public lands raise questions. While Republicans have called for state and local officials to take over lands in their areas, Trump told Field & Stream in January, "You don't what a state is going to do. We have to be great stewards of this land. This is magnificent land."
Bishop has been critical of Obama's actions before. In 2015, he told The Washington Times: "The Obama administration will stop at nothing to lock up more and more land, with the stroke of a pen.
"I condemn this shameful power move, which makes more states and citizens fearful that the federal government can invade at any time to seize more lands like bandits in the night."
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