Congress seizes monument power from the President—slowing land protection
H.R. 521 — Ending Presidential Overreach on Public Lands Act · Filed by Celeste Maloy (R-UT) · 15 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 16, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill strips the President of the power to unilaterally declare or expand national monuments and requires Congress to vote on each one. Currently, the Antiquities Act lets the President do this alone; this bill moves that authority entirely to Congress.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole function is to reallocate authority over monument designation from the executive branch to Congress. It is a structural/constitutional-allocation bill, not a substantive environmental or land-use measure.
What the text implies
- Effectively freezes monument expansion during periods of divided government or congressional gridlock, as bills require supermajority support to pass.
- Shifts monument policy from a tool available to any President (regardless of party) to a legislative process where the majority party controls outcomes.
- May incentivize development interests to lobby Congress rather than the White House, potentially increasing corporate influence on land-use decisions.
- Existing monuments are not affected — only future establishment or extension is blocked without congressional vote.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens gain legislative transparency and democratic accountability — monument decisions move to Congress where they are public and debatable. However, citizens also lose the President's ability to act quickly to protect lands from development, and Congress's gridlock may mean fewer monuments are protected at all.
Who stands to gain
- extractive industries (mining, oil/gas, timber)
- real estate developers
- agricultural interests seeking land access
Named in the bill
Congress, President, 54 U.S.C. § 320301, Antiquities Act, National monuments
Where it stands
15 cosponsors: 15 Republicans.
- Jan 16, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jan 16, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Natural Resources · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Sep 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $760,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 30 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Celeste Maloy, the sponsor, reported $716,075 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Specialty Equipment Market Association — $760,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 14, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (384 characters) on Jun 8, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Sep 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 14, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Congress seizes monument power from the President—slowing land protection” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr521 Report an error
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