Today, the House Committee on Natural Resources passed H.R. 4895, the “Medgar Evers National Monument Act” (Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-MS), establishing the Medgar Evers National Monument, and H.R. 835 (Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-CO), expanding the boundaries of the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument.  

“Today is a good day as the Committee on Natural Resources passed H.R. 4895, legislation to enact the home of the late Mississippi Civil Rights icon Medgar Evers as a national monument,” Rep. Thompson said. “It has been a great collaborative bipartisan effort from my office and the Committee on Natural Resources to get this bill out of Committee. I look forward to advancing this important bill through the House and getting it signed into law.”

“On the Medgar Evers National Monument, we’re doing the monument the right way, how it actually should be done,” Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) stated.  

In recent decades, the Antiquities Act has been used by presidents to sidestep public input in the creation of national monuments, resulting in poorly planned and highly controversial designations.  H.R. 4895 and H.R. 835, alternatively, were crafted through collaboration, local input and rigorous public analysis.  

“On Mr. Lamborn’s bill, we have a piece of legislation right now that has been agreed by all of the Members of the Colorado Delegation, both in the House and the Senate, by the Governor and Legislature. So for me, there is another principal that’s at stake right there,” Bishop added.

The Committee also passed H.R. 4134, the “Cecil D. Andrus-White Clouds Wilderness Redesignation Act” (Rep. Michael Simpson, R-ID).