"Citing state sovereignty and economic hardship, Republican lawmakers said Tuesday that they wanted to give Congress the authority to veto presidents' national monument designations, a power used by nearly every executive since Theodore Roosevelt."

"The Antiquities Act of 1906 has led to the designations of 136 national monuments, a list that includes the Grand Canyon and the Petrified Forest in Arizona and the Statue of Liberty in New York.

But the act has long has been a flash point in Western states, where some residents and officials resent the federal government's level of involvement in land management."

Curtis Tate reports for McClatchy Newspapers September 13, 2011. [2]