Washington, D.C. – A national monument covering approximately 100,000 acres of land in southern Oregon and northern California is officially up for review by the Trump administration.
In June of 2000, President Clinton proclaimed around 52,000 acres in Jackson County as the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.
A little less than 17 years later, President Obama ordered the monument be expanded by approximately 48,000 acres.
On April 26, 2017, President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for the review of some of America’s national monuments. It was initially unclear whether the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument was up for review.
On May 5, the Interior Department released a list of monuments under review. The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument is on that list.
Furthermore, the administration has announced the first ever formal public comment period for the public to weigh in on monument designations.
According to the Department of the Interior, President Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke “believe that local input is a critical component of federal land management.”
Secretary Zinke is required to determine whether the monuments under review meet several requirements, including whether the lands are “appropriately classified under the Act as ‘historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, [or] other objects of historic or scientific interest.’”
The administration provided the following instructions for submitting public comments:
Comments may be submitted online after May 12 at http://www.regulations.gov by entering “DOI-2017-0002” in the Search bar and clicking “Search,” or by mail to Monument Review, MS-1530, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20240.
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