Chief Justice Roberts Expresses Deep ‘Concerns’ About Presidents Being Able to Designate ‘Submerged Land About the Size of Connecticut’ as a Monument – By Matt Naham (Law and Crime) / Mar 22 2021
The Chief Justice of the United States kicked off Monday with some question asking and answering—about how much power presidents really have to, say, treat 3.2 million acres of underwater area as a monument under the Antiquities Act of 1906.
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For years, fishermen complained that the Obama-era ban on commercial fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument would devastate the industry. Although, the Trump administration made a point to lift that ban as a matter of policy during an election year, the chief justice noted that the Biden administration may well reinstate those restrictions. Roberts, seemingly anticipating that’s where all of this is headed, declined to express an opinion about the merits of a would-be follow up case, but he did express “concerns” about presidents wielding sweeping authority in this area even as he respected the court’s denial of certiorari in the case of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association petitioners.
Roberts began by saying a speaker of “ordinary English” would and should agree that thousands of miles of land beneath the sea doesn’t sound like a “monument” or an “antiquity”—and yet, here we are:
