National monument on California-Oregon border will remain intact after surviving legal challenge

ASHLAND, Oregon (AP) — The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, a remote expanse of wilderness along the California-Oregon border, will not lose any of its acreage after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up two challenges to its expansion.

Logging interests and several counties in Oregon had asked the high court to strike down a 2017 addition to the monument. Their lawsuit claimed President Barack Obama improperly made the designation because Congress had previously set aside the land for timber harvests, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. By gaining monument status, the area won special protections, including a prohibition on logging.

The challenges to the expansion raised the additional, and broader, question of whether the president’s authority to create national monuments unilaterally under the Antiquities Act should be restricted, the Chronicle said. Critics of the 1906 law, who have commonly opposed bids for new designations, have argued it gives too much power to the executive branch. The Supreme Court decided not to address the issue.

“The monument and its expansion, it’s now the law of the land,” said Kristen Boyles, an attorney for Earthjustice, which represented groups supporting the expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.

<bsp-list-loadmore data-module="" class=«PageListStandardB» data-gtm-region=«READ MORE» data-gtm-topic=«No Value» data-show-loadmore=«true» data-gtm-modulestyle=«List B»> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> READ MORE </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> Grand Canyon is a program on the rise heading into March Madness matchup with Alabama </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> March Madness and