WASHINGTON — September 30, 2015 — Today, the Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans held an oversight hearing on the designations of Marine National Monuments, which are unilateral executive actions that usurp established regional fisheries management plans and impose significant economic and environmental impacts regionally and nationwide.
In particular, the hearing focused on the threat of Marine National Monument designations off Cape Cod in New England and the Aleutian Islands in Alaska under the Antiquities Act of 1906. President Obama has already expanded existing Marine National Monuments by more than 400,000 square miles, an area larger than the states of Texas and New Mexico combined.
Members and witnesses reviewed the utter lack of public input in prior unilateral monument designations and the adverse effects posed by potential future designations to America’s fisheries and the thousands of jobs supported by the seafood industry.