President Obama used the Antiquities Act today to permanently protect almost a half million square miles of ocean by expanding the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. This increases the total percent of highly protected ocean territory in the US from 6% to 15%.
Learn more about this important ocean habitat and the significance of this designation from our friends at Pew Charitable Trusts.
Signed into law in 1906 by Theodore Roosevelt, the Antiquities Act gives the President the authority to permanently protect public land without the support of Congress. The Antiquities Act has been used over a hundred times since it’s inception. Obama used it in May to create the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Monument in New Mexico, a project that received over $100,000 from The Conservation Alliance.
While we didn’t fund the Remote Islands Marine National Monument, we applaud the President for using this authority to expand these fragile and important marine reserves. We encourage President Obama to continue using the Antiquities Act to designate more National Monuments. It is important to our economy and to the 140 million Americans that recreate in the outdoors every year.
