(Washington, DC) — The Justice Department will allow President Trump to abolish national monuments protected from energy development and other activities by past presidents. The department issued a legal opinion permitting Trump to shrink or eliminate national monuments, which can overturn a 1938 opinion saying presidents didn’t have the power to abolish them. The opinion itself does not overturn any national monument boundaries, but it sets the stage for doing so in the future. In the past, President Trump has sought to shrink monuments including Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments.