In NM it's not Red or Green? It's Will He or Won't He?

That's the question, will Zinke modify the two national monuments in NM or not?

The Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument has made the NY Times and the Washington Post lists as one of the most likely to be diminished, and it's easy to see why. If Zinke strickly follows the criteria set out in Trump's E.O., he will certainly diminish the boundaries of the monument. Let's take a look at the first criteria on the list:

(i)    the requirements and original objectives of the Act, including the Act's requirement that reservations of land not exceed "the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected";

The Antiquities Act requires the President  to identify the objects, the objects then become the national monument, and then the President reserves "the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected".

Any objective observer knows the boundaries of this monument were laid out in a New Mexico Wilderness Alliance (NMWA) wilderness inventory in 2003. When it became clear they weren't going to get the wilderness designations, the hunt was on to find objects to justify the previously drawn boundaries. In other words, the process was exactly opposite of that required in the Antiquities Act.

Does anyone really believe the similarity between the 2003 NMWA recommendation (497,790 acres) and the final size of the monument (496,330 acres) is just a coincidence?

And given the fact that in some cases the distance between protected objects is 50 miles, that hardly meets the "smallest area" criteria.

So by the very first criteria alone, Zinke should diminish the size of the monument. That is, if he follows the criteria in the E.O.

If, on the other hand, he listens to the caterwauling of the politicians and succumbs to the well-funded, madison avenue style media campaign of the environmental groups, he will do nothing.