The Supreme Court this year has launched a major review of the administrative state. In cases challenging the judicial deference to “expert” agency interpretations (Chevron deference), the unreviewable Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the unaccountability of administrative law judges, the justices are curtailing the ability of presidents and bureaucrats to bypass Congress and, in effect, make their own laws.
Later this month, the court may choose to continue that review into the next term, in a case that may have as big an impact as any of those this term. On March 22, the justices will “conference,” or discuss whether to hear, American Forest Resources Council v. United States, which centers on the Antiquities Act.
Enacted in 1906 under Theodore Roosevelt’s conservationist administration, the Antiquities Act is a four-paragraph law giving the president summary power to designate “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the government of the United States to be national monuments … which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”
The purpose was to protect the magnificent vistas of the West and deposits of Native American artifacts. Roosevelt thus designated Wyoming’s Devil’s Tower the first monument, followed closely by the Grand Canyon.
The act was sparsely invoked for many decades. That changed during Bill Clinton’s presidency, which set a record, 19, for new sites, a record that Barack Obama shattered with 29.
Read more in Washington Examiner