The boundaries of a marine sanctuary proposed by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. (Credit: PEER)

For over a hundred years, presidents have used the Antiquities Act to order permanent protections for federal land and resources at sea. Now, Alaska’s congressional delegation is looking to curb that authority.

Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan are co-sponsoring a bill that would require lawmakers to sign off before a president can set up a national monument. 

Murkowski introduced similar legislation in the past. But spokesman Matthew Felling says the senator has new concerns about the president's agenda for Alaska. 

"His aggression with the North Slope and Alaska’s Arctic region — we just believe that this adds a sense of urgency to legislation that she already originally introduced last summer," Felling says.

it’s also hitting closer to home now that there’s a campaign to get federal protection around the Aleutian Islands.

Rick Steiner, an Anchorage-based shipping advocate, has been leading that effort. 

"Overfishing, shipping, fishing, habitat degradation, debris, climate change, what have you," Steiner says. "They all need to be managed in an integrated way. So, I’m sorry the delegation is having a knee-jerk reaction to this potential."

The Antiquities Act has only been used to create one national monument at sea. But President Obama used his executive power to expand the Pacific Remote Islands monument last year. It's now the biggest protected marine area in the world, completely closed to commercial activity.

Steiner isn't going quite that far. But he did propose restrictions in the Aleutians when he helped nominate the region as a national marine sanctuary.

Unlike monuments, marine sanctuaries are overseen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA can assess fines for damaging protected resources inside a sanctuary -- something which the Antiquities Act doesn't address.

This winter, NOAA ruled there wasn’t enough backing from affected communities in the Aleutians -- let alone elected officials -- to move forward.

Matt Brookhart is a policy chief in NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.

"We understand what we don’t want to see with a nomination, and that is the nomination comes from a community that is very focused on one or two interest groups," Brookhart said in an interview in December.

While conservationists and research groups are still interested in a sanctuary, Steiner is pushing for executive action.

The White House has not responded to his proposal to create marine monuments in the Aleutians, along with the Bering Strait and the Arctic Coastal Plain. But as long as the president has veto power, Steiner says he's not concerned about any legislation that would limit new monuments.