The jutting crowns of the Organ Mountains–Desert Peaks National Monument rise up from the landscape just outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico. At night, the mountains are frighteningly imposing with their silhouettes towering over the Chihuahuan Desert. The monument is made up of four independent pieces, which all together equal 496,330 acres of public land. And all of it was put at risk by President Donald Trump in April, along with 27 other spaces, when he used an executive order to call for a review of national monuments designated under the Antiquities Act of 1906.
The president called these monuments a “massive federal land grab,” claiming that their existence robs states of land access. (Land can only be included in a national monument if it is already federal land and rights to the land were grandfathered in prior to its designation.) In August, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke made similar comments...