Weekly litigation report — May 27, 2017

PLF urges the Administration to reverse Antiquities Act abuses

 We submitted comments to the Department of Interior regarding its review of the Bears Ears National Monument. The Monument, like several others made in the past twenty years, is not a small reservation of land to protect historic artifacts. Instead, it prevents multiple and productive use on over 1.35 million acres of federal land in southeastern Utah. But a large reservation of land is not necessary to protect the area. Local residents have used and preserved the land for generations, and would continue to do so without a Monument designation. In our comments, we argue that the President has the power, and should exercise that power, to rescind or reduce the Bears Ears National Monument.

Amicus brief filed in support of doctors restrained by anticompetitive laws

 PLF filed this amicus brief in Women’s Surgical LLC v. Reese, a case filed by our friends at the Goldwater Institute and currently at the Georgia Supreme Court. Women’s Surgical specializes in conducting outpatient procedures for traditionally inpatient surgeries, which benefits patients by providing less expensive and less invasive operations. Women’s Surgical wants to expand its practice, building more operating rooms and contracting with more doctors, but it has had to deal with Georgia’s Certificate of Need (“CON”) laws. Under those laws, competing medical practices are permitted to object to the issuance of a CON, triggering a hearing by the Department to determine whether there is a “need” in the community for the applicant’s proposed new services. PLF urged the court to strike down these unconstitutional laws.