PORTLAND — A Maine congressman is lobbying for a face-to-face meeting with a White House official to discuss the potential designation of a national monument in the state.

The Portland Press Herald reports that U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin sent a letter Thursday to Christy Goldfuss, the White House Council on Environmental Quality’s managing director, requesting a meeting on the potential national monument in Maine’s Katahdin region.

Poliquin, along with Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King, wrote a letter to President Barack Obama in November asking that he not use his executive authority to designate the monument on 100,000 acres of Maine’s northern woodlands.

The group requested that traditional recreational uses be preserved on the land and that timber harvesting be permitted if the president pursues the designation.