The Trump administration's national monuments 'review' is a sham | Brian Calvert

The reasoning the president gave for the review, which could affect 27 national monuments, are demonstrably untrue

• Brian Calvert is the editor-in-chief of High Country News, a Colorado-based magazine that covers the American West

I have been trying to find one good policy reason for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to go after national monuments, but the fact is, there are none.

Zinke, a pro-energy Montanan who speciously claims to be a conservationist, has undertaken an unprecedented review of national monuments dedicated under the Antiquities Act at the behest of Donald Trump. He delivered his recommendations for shrinking a hit-list of 27 monuments on August 24. But his review is a sham, and so is the presidential directive that ordered it.