Congressman Cliff Bentz Leads Bicameral Coalition in Amicus Brief Urging Supreme Court to Curb Presidential Overreach under the Antiquities Act

December 19, 2023 – Congressman Cliff Bentz: Bentz Leads Bicameral Coalition in Amicus Brief Urging Supreme Court to Curb Presidential Overreach under the Antiquities Act

Today, Congressman Cliff Bentz (R-Ore.) announced that he is leading a coalition of Congressmen and Senators in filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, urging the Court to hear two important and critical cases challenging the President’s misuse of the Antiquities Act to establish National Monuments. These cases, American Forest Resource Council v. United States of America and Murphy Company v. Biden, present a clear opportunity for the Court to establish limits on presidential authority and uphold the Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine.

“The Constitution makes it clear that Congress, not the President, makes our laws. The President’s job is not to make law, but to enforce them. Yet, in recent years, Presidents have increasingly usurped congressional authority by using the Antiquities Act to ‘Monumentize’ millions upon millions of acres of public land rendering massive areas largely untouchable. This blatant disregard for the will of the people is an affront to the Constitution,” stated Congressman Bentz. “In this brief we urge the Supreme Court to hear these cases and to make it clear that the President cannot circumvent Congress by rewriting our nation’s public land
laws with the stroke of a pen. This is about upholding the Constitution, protecting our public lands from being left to burn up, and that they can be properly managed with the their best interest in mind.”

The amicus brief highlights several key concerns:

• Presidential Overreach: The President’s recent national monument designation in Oregon overrides Congress’s directive for how these lands must be managed, specifically the O&C Act, which mandates sustained-yield timber production to generate revenue for rural communities. The President’s actions set a dangerous precedent of executive overreach on all federal lands and waters.
• Economic Devastation: The President’s monument designation cripples forest-dependent communities and exacerbates the wildfire crisis by severely limiting essential forest management practices.
• Constitutional Violation: The Constitution vests Congress, not the President, with the power to regulate federal lands. This case is an opportunity for the Supreme Court to reaffirm the separation of powers and protect the rights of American citizens.

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