Obama wasn't king, and his laws aren't set in stone

Former President Barack Obama once acknowledged, "I actually believe my own bullshit," which must include statements that, with him, "the rise of the oceans [will] slow and our planet [will] heal," that stimulus projects were "shovel-ready," and that he is smarter than anyone working for him. To those add his observation that his policies, such as his decrees of national monuments off limits to the public, are set in stone.

Obviously, from their comments among the 1.2 million filed last month on plans by President Trump to void Obama's and former President Bill Clinton's illegal decrees, environmentalists believe that baloney. They are wrong.

Obama's abuses of the Antiquities Act of 1906 are well known, including designation of an ocean monument off New England to kill fishing an unauthorized park parading as a monument in rural Maine to kill logging and milling and the 1.3 million acre Bear Ears in Utah to placate environmentalists. Largely forgotten everywhere but in the West was Clinton's designation of the 1.8 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

On behalf of the people of Southern Utah, my organization sued Clinton. For years, a courageous federal judge resisted Clinton's lawyers' efforts to dismiss the case; however, when former President George W. Bush's lawyers defended the decree, the judge figuratively threw up his hands. Our lawsuit was over and with it any hopes of limiting future presidents.

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