Justice Roberts Expresses Deep 'Concerns' About Presidents Being Able to Designate 'Submerged Land

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

About the Size of Connecticut’ as a Monument

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.

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:

Which of the following is not like the others: (a) a monument, (b) an antiquity (defined as a “relic or monument of ancient times,” Webster’s International Dictionary of the English Language 66 (1902)), or (c) 5,000 square miles of land beneath the ocean? If you answered (c), you are not only correct but also a speaker of ordinary English. In this case, however, the Government has relied on the Antiquities Act of 1906 to designate an area of submerged land about the size of Connecticut as a monument—the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/chief-justice-roberts-expresses-deep-concerns-about-presidents-being-able-to-designate-submerged-land-about-the-size-of-connecticut-as-a-monument/ar-BB1eQ90I

[2naSalit]

1. So why are the three that W named not a problem?

[in2herbs]

2. I don't know if I have this right, but Roberts is questioning the authority of a president

to declare rights to "things" that are underground. However, corporations, i.e., oil companies, etc., have such rights as I am quite sure that when/if oil was found on privately owned land the court has said the corporations are entitled to extract the oil because the property owner only owns the surface, not what under the surface.

I hope that Biden appoints federal and USSC judges to the courts before any of these expected lawsuits reach the courts.