The national monument was created by a proclamation issued on July 10, 2015, by President
Barack Obama under the
Antiquities Act. The campaign to designate Basin and Range as a national monument had the support of Nevada's largest employer,
MGM Resorts International, as well as
Wynn Resorts,
Barrick Gold Corporation,
Rockwood Lithium North America, the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce, and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The creation of the national monument was applauded by Reid, Titus, and
Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell. The
Sierra Club also praised the designation, stating that the area was "a fitting addition to our protected public lands" because it is "one of the best examples of the spectacular basins framed by Nevada's breathtaking mountain ranges, a resting place for historic artifacts critical to understanding our nation's Native American cultural history, and home to unique plants and animals, some found only in Nevada and this region." Conversely, three Republican U.S. Representatives from Nevada,
Mark Amodei,
Joe Heck, and
Cresent Hardy, condemned the new monument, and Republican U.S. Representative
Rob Bishop, the chairman of the
House Committee on Natural Resources, called it a "surreptitious land grab" by the Obama administration. Previously, a
U.S. Department of Energy study had looked at possible railroad routes to carry
radioactive waste to
Yucca Mountain and had proposed a
Caliente-to-Yucca Mountain route, of which would run through an area later designated at Basin and Range National Monument. Robert Halstead, the executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the proclamation of the Basin and Range National Monument was the "final nail in the coffin" of the railroad project and would "really complicate life" for the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ==Description and significance==