Biden Team Lawyering Up In Preparation For Challenges On Bears Ears, Other National Monuments

[hatrack]

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Natalie Landreth, newly hired as Interior's deputy solicitor for land, has previously argued in a court brief that Trump "exceeded the limited authority delegated to his office, and violated the Antiquities Act and the separation of powers established in the Constitution" in slashing the Utah monument's size. Landreth spent 17 years at the Native American Rights Fund, which joined in a December 2017 lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's actions.

"Many Native Americans and Native Nations ... have profound historic, cultural, and spiritual ties to Bears Ears and the more than 100,000 historic landmarks, structures, and historic and scientific objects located within Bears Ears," the opening brief signed by Landreth and others noted. Landreth withdrew from the still-ongoing lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last month, prior to her joining the Biden administration. Her new boss, acting Solicitor Robert Anderson, has likewise disputed Trump's use of the Antiquities Act.

"The Act does not include a grant of power to modify or eliminate monuments ... now a matter of intense controversy and litigation," Anderson stated in a 2018 Ecology Law Quarterly article, citing the Bears Ears lawsuit.

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Formerly the Oneida Indian Nation visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School, (Ed. - Robert) Anderson is an enrolled member of the Bois Forte Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. His expertise hints at some of the broader changes ahead for Interior (Greenwire, Jan. 21). Interior's acting deputy solicitor for energy and mineral resources, Travis Annatoyn, likewise claims experience in challenging the Trump administration's Bears Ears management.

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https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063724513

[abqtommy]

1. The word of the day (and every day) concerning the Indigenous population of the U.S. and

Canada is SOVEREIGNTY. Sovereignty is granted to all Indigenous people in the U.S. and
Canada by enacted treaties. Honest courts and politicians understand just what that means.