Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig wrote on Facebook Friday that with President Donald Trump’s election, a plan to designate 1.4 million acres of the Sierra National Forest as a national monument “has been prevented.”

Similarly, two U.S. Congressmembers introduced a bill to make it so only lawmakers can set large swaths of land aside.

“Congress, not the executive branch, has jurisdiction to make decisions on public land,” said Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-Utah). “Congress trusted presidents with a narrow authority to declare national monuments in the Antiquities Act. Unfortunately, presidents have continued to abuse that narrow authority to designate millions of acres of land in Utah and across the West without proper congressional oversight.”

Magsig authored a letter supporting the Ending Presidential Overreach on Public Lands Act.

Range of Light Didn’t Make Biden’s Cut

The Range of Light proposal would have limited logging, mining, grazing, and recreational uses throughout the forest that connects the Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon national parks. Proponents of the plan said a national monument designation and administration under the National Park Service would have better protected the park than under the U.S. Forest Service.

The Range of Light Monument would have included Huntington, Edison, and Shaver lakes. A group of Democratic state lawmakers petitioned Gov. Gavin Newsom to pressure former President Joe Biden to make the designation.

Opponents said it would have decreased access, taken away off-roaders’ access to the land, and limited park uses without consulting the public.

The Range of Light didn’t make Biden’s cut, however.

In his administration’s final days, he created the Chuckwalla and Sáttítla national monuments. The 624,000-acre Chuckwalla monument lies south of Joshua Tree National Park. The 224,000-acre Sáttítla monument lies on the Oregon border.

Presidential Overreach Act Gives Congress Sole Power to Protect Lands

The Ending Presidential Overreach on Public Lands Act bill undoes much of the powers given to the president in the 1906 Antiquities Act. President Theodore Roosevelt intended it to give presidents a way to protect lands of historic or natural significance.

Some lawmakers have criticized the act, saying it has gone too far.

Maloy said in her bill that Biden’s America the Beautiful Initiative “resulted in entire communities being prevented from using the resources in entire communities being prevented from using the resources in their own backyards for recreational or economic use.”

U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) is chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. He put forward a companion bill.

Utah has had a back-and-forth for the Bears Ears National Monument, which was established by President Barack Obama in2016. President Donald Trump eliminated 85% of the monument a year later only to see Biden restore the removed territory in 2021.

Native American tribes have long called for the protection of Bears Ears, as they have for Chuckwalla and Sáttítla.