Obama has protected vastly more land and sea than any other president
Former President Theodore Roosevelt might have been the one to write the 1906 Antiquities Act — which gives the president the ability to designate national monuments without having to go through Congress — but quantitatively speaking, even Roosevelt has nothing on President Obama's environmental legacy.
Since his election, President Obama has added 554 million acres of national monument space, with most of that being aquatic, The Washington Post reports. Obama added 1.65 million acres on Wednesday when he designated Utah's Bears Ears monument and Nevada's Gold Butte monument. In total, Obama has used his executive powers to create national monuments 29 times.
By comparison, George W. Bush designated the second-most acreage of any president, at just 214 million acres — again, mostly consisting of protected water regions. Roosevelt added 1.5 million acres.
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