Clinton Protection Purchases Unopposed, but Monuments Challenged
12/15/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Clinton Protection Purchases Unopposed, but Monuments
Challenged
Source: Environment News Service
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 15, 1999
Byline: Cat Lazaroff
WASHINGTON, DC, December 15, 1999 (ENS) - Hawaii's Hakalau Forest,
Florida's Pelican Island and the birth home and burial place of
Martin Luther King, Jr. are among the natural and historic areas that
President Bill Clinton proposes to protect with new funding in the
2000 budget. Speaking from the White House Tuesday, Clinton also gave
tacit approval to a suggestion that he use his executive privilege to
create or expand four national monuments in the American west.
Clinton has given Congress a list of 18 sites that he wants to
purchase or otherwise protect using money from the $625 million Lands
Legacy Initiative, approved just two weeks ago.
"Two weeks ago, I had the great honor of signing into law the funding
for this Lands Legacy Initiative," Clinton said. "With one stroke of
the pen, we made it possible to add hundreds of thousands of acres to
our children's endowment of natural wonders - places like New
Mexico's Baca Ranch, home to one of North America's largest herds of
wild elk."
"We now have funding to protect all these places," he continued. "We
have willing sellers, and we look forward to speedy review by the
appropriate committees in Congress."
Opposition to the proposed land purchases, using funds already
approved by Congress, is not expected to be significant. But some
lawmakers are already up in arms over a suggestion that Clinton will
use his executive power under the 1906 Antiquities Act to order the
creation of new national monuments next year, bypassing the
Congressional approval process.
Every President this century, except Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and
George Bush, has used the Antiquities Act to create a new National
Monument, said Babbitt, and most of America's national parks were
also created under the Act.
In a prepared speech at the White House Tuesday, Clinton gave his
tentative approval to the creation of three new national monuments
and the expansion of a fourth. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt
recommended this week that the President use his authority to create
two new monuments in Arizona, another in California, and expand the
existing California's Pinnacles National Monument.
"Secretary Babbitt's recommendations come as a result of careful
analysis and extensive discussions with local citizen, state and
local officials, and with members of Congress," Clinton said. "And I
will take them very seriously. I expect to make a decision on the
sites early next year."
Senator John McCain, a Republican presidential candidate from
Arizona, quickly criticized the proposals as a "unilateral decision,"
excluding the opinions of Arizona citizens. A release from McCain's
Senate office said the Senator thinks the issue should be resolved
through legislation.
The four proposed sites are already federally held lands, and would
not require any land purchases. However, giving the lands national
monument status would prevent certain land uses, such as logging and
mining, on lands that now allow such activities.
McCain particularly objects to the two monuments that would be formed
in his home state. Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, a one
million acre tract of land northwest of the Grand Canyon in Arizona,
would help protect the Grand Canyon north rim watershed. Much of the
proposed monument was claimed for uranium mining some 20 years ago,
but few mining claims remain in the face of current low prices for
the mineral.
"This country is a beautiful, natural extension of the Grand Canyon,"
said Rob Smith, Southwest regional director for the Sierra Club.
"It's rugged land, rich in wildlife, including bighorn sheep and the
recently reintroduced California condor."
The second Arizona monument, Agua Fria National Monument, would
comprise about 70,000 acres located just 40 miles north of Phoenix,
the state's rapidly expanding capitol. The area is "an archaeological
treasure trove, containing some of the most extraordinary prehistoric
ruins and petroglyphs in the American Southwest," Clinton said. The
area is also home to native fish, desert tortoise, mountain lions and
neotropical birds.
In California, the new California Coastal National Monument would
protect thousands of small islands threatened by mining. The islands
and reefs serve as essential habitat for sea otters and sea birds
forced from the shore by extensive development, Clinton said. Local
entrepreneurs have mined the islands to make kitty litter, among
other products.
"Anyone who has watched waves crash and sea lions frolic on
California's sea stacks understands that these unique areas should be
protected from destruction," said Mark Massara, director of Sierra
Club's California coastal program.
Babbitt also wants Clinton to almost double the size of the existing
Pinnacles National Monument, a region of spectacular volcanic spires
and mountain caves now threatened by the sprawl of California's Bay
Area.
The Interior Secretary included the California sites on his list
after the Clinton administration concluded that the Republican
controlled Congress is unlikely to approve proposals by
Representative Sam Farr, a California Democrat, to expand Pinnacles
and designate the islands as wilderness areas.
"I'm overjoyed," Farr said Tuesday. "With these two initiatives, we
are taking substantial steps toward protecting the environment for
our future generations."
The 18 lands legacy sites that Clinton proposes buying for about $35
million include:
* Gunnison Basin and Silver Mountain, Colorado
* Pelican Island National Wildlife Refugee, Florida
* The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, Georgia
* Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge, Hawaii
* Sawtooth National Recreation Area, Idaho
* The Chippewa and Superior National Forests, Minnesota
* Lake Logan, North Carolina
* Gulf Tract and the Stones River National Battlefield,
Tennessee
* Bonneville Shoreline Trail and the Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah
* The Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefield Memorial
National Park, Virginia
* Virginia Islands National Park, Virginia
* Mountains to Sound Greenway, Washington
* Royal Teton Ranch, Wyoming * The Chattooga Wild and Scenic River,
which flows through the Carolinas and Georgia
The 18 proposals were sent to congressional appropriations
committees, which must review the purchases before they can be
approved.
"Like [President] Theodore Roosevelt, I believe there are certain
places humankind simply cannot improve upon, places whose beauty and
interest no photograph could capture, places you simply have to see
for yourself," Clinton said. "There is no greater gift we can offer
to the new millennium than to protect these treasures for all
Americans for all time."