President Biden turns 150-year-old family ranch into national monument

President Biden turns 150-year-old family ranch into national monument

PLF’s relentless fight to stop Presidential Antiquities Act abuses

Chris Heaton’s family arrived in America’s west in 1871 and have ranched in Utah and Arizona ever since. Six generations later, Chris and his wife Cassie run a 50,000-acre cattle ranch, continuing a proud family tradition they hope to pass down to their four children.

“Our beef goes across this nation and that means something to us,” beams Chris. “We’re part of the 2% of Americans that feed the other 98%. We take great pride in that.”

In August 2023, President Biden created the Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, casting a threatening shadow over the family’s livelihood, legacy, and property rights. With the stroke of his pen, the president transformed nearly one million acres in Arizona into a federally protected “national monument,” and with it, the Heatons’ ranch.

The Heatons’ ranch is comprised of private land and public land leased from the state of Arizona and the federal Bureau of Land Management. As is common, yet crucial in the West, Chris holds private water rights on public land—many predating BLM’s creation. These rights allow him to build and own stock ponds, wells, and springs to meet his cattle’s daily grazing needs.

The shock of the monument’s mammoth footprint—150,000 acres larger than Yosemite National Park, and more expansive than the Great Smoky Mountains and Grand Teton National Parks combined—was matched only by the haste of its establishment, materializing from rumor to reality in four months.

“It was a nightmare,” Chris recalls of the sole public hearing where he was given just two minutes to speak and booed by a crowd stacked with monument supporters. “I looked around the room and thought, ‘Am I not in America anymore?’ I even told them, ‘This is not right. This is un-American.’”

It’s also unconstitutional. The president’s power to create national monuments comes from the Antiquities Act of 1906 but only to protect historic or scientifically important objects from looting and damage using the minimum amount of land necessary for the objects’ care.

By proclaiming the Heatons’ ranchland (and hundreds of thousands more acres of land) a national monument, President Biden grossly exceeded his authority, citing his environmental agenda to proclaim every land feature and life form within a million-acre landscape as protected objects. Kanab Creek and its tributaries, stock ponds, wells, and springs that water their cattle are now monument objects. So is all the land where the cattle graze, every day.

Worse, disturbing any of the newly- minted “protected objects” is now a federal crime carrying fines and possible jail time. So, while ranching is still allowed for the time being, basic ranch upkeep like cleaning out a stock pond or repairing a road could be illegal acts. The government hasn’t even explained what’s criminal, leaving land users in the dark and fearing federal prosecution.

“We’re just trying to run our cows and live our lives,” says Cassie. “The government’s heavy thumb is coming down and saying they know better than us what to do with that land.”

“If we hadn’t taken such good care of this ranch for multiple generations, the government wouldn’t even want it,” declares Chris. “We’re farmers and ranchers in America and we’re stewards of the land. Obviously, we did a dang good job. Now, the government wants to lock it up and keep us off of it. It makes no sense.”

“In no way does the Antiquities Act authorize any president to cordon off enormous land masses from productive use whenever the mood—or special interest—strikes,” explains PLF attorney Frank Garrison. “Nor is President Biden the first to employ this unlawful monument maneuver. His Ancestral Footprints Proclamation is merely the latest in a decades-long pattern of  presidents exercising more power than Congress gave them.”

Disappointingly, courts have typically deferred to the president, frustrating legal challenges to these unilateral monument designations.

Not this time, vow the Heatons, who have filed a federal lawsuit to stop the president’s illegal land grabs and restore their rights. The timing may prove fortuitous—there is clear interest on the Supreme Court to address the Antiquities Act.

In 2021, the Court declined to review a previous PLF case, Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association v. Raimondo, prompting a three-page statement from Chief Justice John Roberts criticizing how the Antiquities Act “has been transformed into a power without any discernible limit.” In March—just weeks ago—the Court turned down a similar case but Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch stated on the record they “would grant” review.

Meanwhile, the Heatons are confident their ranching legacy, that has survived a century-and-a-half of uncontrollable markets and unpredictable weather, can fight unconstitutional government overreach—and win.

“We just came out of a horrible drought and then we get this monument,” says Chris. “We are not rolling over. We’re not losing the ranch and everything that my father and grandfather and great-grandfather worked and fought for.”

“We’d rather go down fighting,” adds Cassie. “When something is so important to our future and our livelihood, it’s worth going toe to toe with the federal government.”