Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, right, makes remarks before leading the ground breaking for the Flight 93 National Memorial visitor center complex on Tuesday, Sept.10, 2013 in Shanksville, Pa. The 6,800 foot visitor center is designed so that the building will be broken in two at the point of the plane?s flight path, and is expected to open in late 2015. The ridge will be built up to give people a clear view of the crash site, which is near a memorial wall that lists the names of all 33 passengers and seven crew members who were killed. Flight 93 was traveling from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco on Sept. 11, 2001, when it was diverted from the likely goal of crashing it into the White House or Capitol. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

WASHINGTON -– A group of 109 Democratic House members is urging the Obama administration to use its executive authority to protect new public land.

Under the Antiquities Act, the president can designate new national monuments without waiting for Congress to act. President Barack Obama has designated nine new monuments during his presidency. Congress, meanwhile, has gone a record amount of time without granting new protections for wilderness or other public land. The last congressional designation was in 2009.

“In today’s deeply partisan environment, it’s becoming nearly impossible for Congress to make critical conservation decisions," the House members, led by House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Public Lands Subcommittee ranking member Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), wrote in a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. "The 112th Congress was the first Congress in 40 years that failed to permanently protect any of America’s treasured landscapes. The current Congress is on a path to repeat that abysmal record."

The letter notes that the House Natural Resources Committee had hearings on eight of 37 proposed land designations in the 113th Congress, and only one was passed in the House. "With only 121 legislative days scheduled for 2014, the time to act is running out," the members said in a statement.