Within hours after President Trump affixed his signature to an executive order directing the Interior secretary to review the Antiquities Act and nearly two dozen national monuments created since 1996, there was pushback from conservation and environmental groups, politicians, corporations, and stakeholders from around the country. If the president and Secretary Ryan Zinke were concerned about a lack of input on the monument designations, they're hearing plenty now.

• U.S. Sen. Tom Udall led a group of 31 Democratic senators in condemning President Trump’s executive order.
• The Senate and House Outdoor Recreation Caucuses, Outdoor Industry Association, Public Land Solutions, and The North Face planned on Thursday to host a briefing on the Hill focused on the value of the outdoor recreation economy.
• The American Bird Conservancy said the executive order "has the potential to undermine one of the nation’s most important conservation tools — one that has benefited endangered birds such as the northern spotted owl and provided habitat essential for their recovery."
• The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership called for Secretary Zinke's review process to "be both open and transparent, and that it honor a conservation legacy that was first created by Theodore Roosevelt."
• Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario, whose company has been a stalwart and visible supporter of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, said that "(L)ess than 24 hours after joining with our industry to celebrate the economic power of outdoor recreation, in a hypocritical move, the Trump administration took unprecedented steps that could result in the removal of protections for treasured public lands. We take this as a sign that Trump and his team prefer to cater to fossil fuel interests and state land grabs for unsustainable development, rather than preserve a vital part of our nation’s heritage for future generations by protecting federal lands owned by every citizen."

Similar outrage was voiced by such groups as the National Wildlife Federation, The Wilderness Society, the Natural Resources Defense Council, even the Union of Concerned Scientists.

When the topic is federal lands, who are the stakeholders? Are they just area residents living around a national park, national monument, or national forest? Or do all American citizens, including those living hundreds and even thousands of miles from a monument yet as citizens hold a share in those federal lands, have a stake in how they are managed? That's a question to consider now that Secretary Zinke has been tasked with reviewing the Antiquities Act and how it has been used by Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama.

The Democratic senators mustered by Sen. Udall noted that both President Trump, when he was a candidate, and Secretary Zinke, when he was nominated, "promised to emulate President Teddy Roosevelt and his vision for conserving public lands. We urge you to honor your promises and not alter the protections that previous presidents have put in place to safeguard these national monuments.”

"... We request that any process for evaluating, modifying, or removing the protections for areas designated under the Antiquities Act should be conducted through an open, transparent, and public process in which all Americans can participate and provide their information and insight," the senators added in a letter to the president. "In particular, it is important that government-to-government relationships with federally recognized Indian tribes be maintained through meaningful consultation.”

At the Union of Concerned Scientists, Adam Markham, the deputy director of the group's Climate and Energy Program, wrote in a blog Wednesday that "(W)ithout the Antiquities Act, now under attack by the Trump administration as part of its strategy to roll-back environmental protections and open public lands to increased exploitation for coal, oil, and minerals, we might never have had the benefit of the Grand Canyon, Olympic, or Acadia national parks.

"The clear intention of the executive order is to lay the groundwork for shrinking national monuments or rescinding their designation entirely, in order to open currently protected public lands for untrammeled growth in coal, oil, and minerals extraction."

Along with the outrage, U.S. Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, wondered Wednesday if Secretary Zinke "has enough time to hold a series of public meetings – which are typically held between federal officials and local stakeholders before a national monument is designated – at each of the more than 20 national monuments slated for 'review' before his report to President Trump is due in August, 120 days from today."

The Arizona congressman also was curious how the Trump administration came up for the guidelines for the review: that it be restricted to national monuments created after Jan. 1, 1996, and which cover at least 100,000 acres.

"With no apparent justification, the order lumps in sites as diverse as Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, a large area in the remote Pacific Ocean, and Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, a landlocked region of approximately 175,000 acres in southwestern Colorado that protects the nation’s densest known concentration of Native American dwellings and artifacts," the congressman's staff noted in a release.

“They’ve set a high standard for public input, and the clock is ticking now,” Rep. Grijalva said Wednesday. “I’m concerned that Republican rhetoric on our public lands is being taken for fact and that Secretary Zinke is being set up for failure here. National monuments are only declared after extensive local input, whatever a few lawmakers may now be saying. If he intends to offer the American people even more of a say than they already had before these monuments were declared, he needs to get on a plane tonight and spend the next several months on the road holding back-to-back-to-back public meetings. Jumping on a few pro-industry conference calls with Republican lawmakers doesn’t meet any reasonable standard for public outreach.”

Rep. Grijalva said he looked forward to having Secretary Zinke visit Arizona to discuss the many benefits and strong public support for the four national monuments – Sonoran Desert, Ironwood Hills, Grand Canyon-Parashant, and Vermilion Cliffs – on the administration’s “review” list.

According to the Democrat's staff, "the executive order includes a confusing clause that leaves open the possibility of a 'review' of any monument of any size declared since 1996 that Zinke personally determines was established without sufficient local input. Grijalva pointed out that this makes Zinke’s task less easy for the public to understand and leaves supporters of recently protected historical sites like Stonewall Inn National Monument – which can be as small as a few acres – to guess Zinke’s intentions without a clear set of guidelines.

While President Trump and Secretary Zinke both said Wednesday during a signing ceremony at the Interior Department that local stakeholders had been removed from having their voice heard, documents obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform showed the lengths the Obama administration went to when studying whether the Bears Ears area in the southeastern corner of Utah should be designated as a monument. The committee received more than 11,000 pages of documents relating to the designation debate from the Interior Department. 

Among the documents was a note from Utah Gov. Gary Herbert's staff congratulating then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell on a public meeting she held with local communities.

At the National Parks Action Fund, which is affiliated with the National Parks Conservation Association, Executive Director Kristen Brengel called the executive order "a direct attack on our national parks and the value they bring to the lives of all Americans. The Trump administration is reviewing the worthiness of our historic, cultural, and natural heritage. This is a sad day for all Americans – our conservation lands and history is on the chopping block.

“America’s national monuments are extraordinary places that are nationally significant historic, sacred, and conservation sites. An arbitrary review to remove protection for these sites is shortsighted and ill-conceived," she added.