President Trump will sign an executive order on Wednesday instructing the Department of the Interior to review the designations of national monuments by his predecessors, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
Trump’s order reportedly will instruct Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to examine those designations to determine whether they were within the scope of a century-old law that allows presidents to set aside federal lands without congressional approval.
{mosads}The executive order is mainly geared toward reviewing President Obama’s designation of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah in December, according to the Tribune. The 1.35 million acre site was preserved due to its Native American heritage, but critics say Obama’s designation was an overreach of executive power.
Trump is expected to sign a broader series of executive orders on energy and the environment this week, following an executive order that began undoing Obama’s climate change agenda.
“I am taking an historic step to lift the restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion and to cancel job-killing regulations,” Trump said last month.