This is the second in a series of four Public Lands Blog posts regarding the infamous “O&C” lands, a variant of public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. Part 2 examines a recent ruling by the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Big Timber’s and Addicted Counties’ supreme gambits to gut the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument have failed, but the monument is still in mortal peril from the Bureau of Land Management.

Congress has not reauthorized or amended the NMSA since 2000. Now would not be a good time to try. Recent history, under both a Republican and a Democratic president, has shown that serious large-scale ocean conservation occurs only with the use of the Antiquities Act.

National monuments are “proclamations,” not “executive orders.” The president issues executive orders under the faithful execution clause of the Constitution (in Article II, Section 3). A president may expand, revoke, or modify a previous executive order. An executive order and a presidential proclamation under the Antiquities Act are absolutely not one and the same.

Big Timber in Oregon is so 20th Century. It used to be that timber jobs were above the state’s median wage; now they are below it. Today, only 1.3 percent of Oregon’s jobs arise from falling trees. That number will continue to decline in relative terms as Oregon’s economy continues to grow, and it will continue to decline in absolute terms as the timber industry continues to automate.

Here are some national monuments, quite beloved today, that had strong local opposition at the time of their proclamation: Devil’s Tower, Petrified Forest, Muir Woods, Oregon Caves, Natural Bridges, Dinosaur, White Sands, Caters of the Moon, Lava Beds, Admiralty Island, Cascade-Siskiyou, and Virgin Island Coral Reef.