President Trump will travel to the Department of the Interior Wednesday to sign an executive order jump-starting a review of national monuments designated by presidents using the Antiquities Act over the past 20 years.

Starting with President Clinton naming Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante a national monument in 1996, to President Obama doing the same for Bears Ears national monument last year, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will have 120 days to let Trump know 'if a monument should be rescinded, resized [or] modified in order to better manage our federal land,' Zinke explained at the White House Tuesday.

Proponents of the order argue that today's monuments take up too much acreage, and their single-use purpose, unilaterally decided on by the president, bans drilling, farming and other money-making opportunities and thus stymies local jobs.

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Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke (left) appeared at the White House Tuesday to give specifics on an executive order President Trump (right) will sign Wednesday initiating a review of national monuments

The oldest national monument that the review will focus on is the 1996 designation of Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah

The most recent national monument that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will look at is Bears Ears in Utah, designated a national monument by President Obama in 2016

The executive order instructs the secretary of the interior to look at national monuments larger than 100,00 acres, which have been designated over the past 20 years

'I can tell you from a kid who grew up in Montana, who grew up in the West where much of these monuments have taken place, today's executive order and the review of the Antiquities Act over the past few decades is long overdue,' Zinke said.

Environmentalists, on the other hand, see the executive order as a slippery slope, which could open public lands up to industry – and pollution.

'It appears this executive order is the start of an all-out assault on America's national monuments and Teddy Roosevelt's conservation legacy,' Aaron Weiss, Media Director at the Center for Western Priorities, said in an email to ThinkProgress.

Roosevelt was the president behind the Antiquities Act and named Devils Tower, of Close Encounters of the Third Kind fame, the country's first national monument in 1906.

Different from national parks, national monuments can be created from any federal land at the president's discretion.

The Interior Secretary will only be looking at monuments bigger than 100,000 acres, which Zinke said numbered between 24 and 40.

The White House later released a list of 24.

The executive order's existence was first reported by Axios on Monday as Trump signs a slew of orders as his administration marks 100 days, which will happen on Saturday.

At the White House Tuesday, Zinke was already pushing back against liberal detractors, arguing that the executive order had a very limited scope.

'Here's what the executive order does not do,' he told reporters in the briefing room Tuesday. 'Executive order does not strip any monument of a designation. The executive order does not loosen any environmental or conservation regulation on any land or marine areas.'

Zinke also tried to assuage environmentalists' fears by saying things like 'I'm a Teddy Roosevelt guy' and 'no one loves our public lands more than I.'

NATIONAL MONUMENTS INCLUDED IN THE REVIEW Grand Staircase-Escalante, Utah Grand Canyon-Parashant, Arizona Giant Sequoia, California Hanford Reach, Washington Canyons of the Ancients, Colorado Ironwood Forest, Arizona Vermilion Cliffs, Arizona Carrizo Plain, California Papahanaumokuakea Marine, Hawaii

Sonoran Desert, Arizona Upper Missouri River Breaks, Montana World War II Valor in the Pacific, California, Hawaii, Alaska Marianas Trench, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam Pacific Remote Islands, Pacific Ocean Rose Atoll, American Samoa Rio Grande del Norte, New Mexico Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, New Mexico Basin and Range, Nevada Berryessa Snow Mountain, California Mojave Trails, California Sand to Snow, California Northeast Canyons & Seamounts, Massachusetts Gold Butte, Nevada Bears Ears, Utah Advertisement

'You can love them as much, but you can't love them more than I do and that's one of the reasons why I love my job,' Zinke said.

But he noted that the Antiquities Act even said that the monument should be the 'smallest area compatible' with what the government was trying to preserve, noting that the recent trend has been for monuments to be larger and larger.

As a White House fact sheet put it, 'the average size of monuments has exploded in recent decades.'

Zinke also pointed out that before lands were designated as national monuments, they were still public lands, and thus could serve more purposes, including farming, ranching, timber harvest, mining, oil and gas exploration, fishing and motorized sports.

'I am opposed to transfer or sale of public lands,' he stated, though added, 'We can do a lot better as a government managing our land and to a degree we have drifted too far away from multiple use to single use.'

Being a 'national monument' was the single use Zinke was referring to.

'The administration, as ya'll know, has heard from members of Congress and states, and in some cases the designation of the monument has resulted in loss of jobs, reduced wages and reduced public access,' Zinke also argued.

The monument considered to be most at risk was one Obama designated in 2016, Bears Ears national monument in Utah, which includes 1.35 million acres and many sacred Native American sites.

Despite years of communication between the administration, elected officials and local stakeholders, including a coalition of 30 Native American tribes, some Utah politicians are still grumbling about it.

'I think the concern I have and the president has is when you designate a monument, the local community that's affected should have a voice. And he said that in the campaign,' Zinke said of President Trump.

'This executive order does not predispose any action other than have the secretary that he chose, me, review them,' Zinke continued.

'And I'm going to review them in a transparent matter, I'm going to make sure we have a voice,' the Interior secretary said.