Clinton Considers Creating New National Monuments
12/15/99
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Clinton Considers Creating New National Monuments
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 15, 1999
Byline: Randall Mikkelsen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal land along Grand Canyon National Park
in Arizona would receive new protection under proposals made on
Tuesday by the Interior Department to create three new national
monuments and expand a fourth.
At a White House ceremony, President Clinton said he would make a
decision early next year on the recommendations, which immediately
drew criticism from Arizona Sen. John McCain (news - web sites), a
Republican presidential candidate.
Clinton also proposed buying 18 sites of historical or natural
significance under his ``lands legacy'' initiative. The sites
included land surrounding the first home of civil rights leader
Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta and habitat for sea turtles and
manatees on Florida's Pelican Island, where President Theodore
Roosevelt created the first national wildlife refuge in 1903.
``Like 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."
The proposal for national monuments, announced by Interior Secretary
Bruce Babbitt, would create a one million-acre Grand Canyon-Parashant
National Monument to protect the watershed on the north rim of the
Grand Canyon in Arizona.
``The Grand Canyon is still not fully protected,'' Babbitt told
reporters at the White House.
The proposal also would designate a 71,000-acre national monument
protecting prehistoric rock inscriptions and ancient ruins north of
the sprawling city of Phoenix, and another monument covering
thousands of small islands, rocks and reefs off the California coast
that serve as habitat for wildlife such as sea otters and birds.
Furthermore, the proposal would expand by 8,000 acres the Pinnacles
National Monument south of San Jose, California.
Development Would Be Barred
Although the land covered by the proposals already is owned by the
U.S. government, a national-monument designation would put it off
limits to mining and other forms of development as designated by
Clinton.
McCain criticized the proposals, which would create two new monuments
in his home state, as a ``unilateral decision'' bypassing the people
of Arizona. He said in a release issued by his Senate office that the
issue should be resolved through legislation.
The 18 ``lands legacy'' sites that Clinton proposed buying for some
$35 million also included: an expansion of Hakalau Forest National
Wildlife Refuge in Hawaii; land along the Chattooga River in North
Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia; and other projects.
The initiative aims to protect parks, forests and farmland. Congress
increased funding for the initiative by 42 percent, to $652 million,
for 2000, but most of the money will be used to support state and
local land acquisition and for the federal government to buy the Baca
Ranch site in New Mexico.
The proposals were sent to congressional appropriations committees,
which must be consulted on the purchases.
Clinton's authority to protect federal lands by establishing national
monuments or similar reserves was established under the Antiquities
Act of 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt, who set aside some 194
million acres of land during his presidency.
Clinton used the authority in 1996 to create the Grand Staircase-
Escalante National Monument in Utah.
Babbitt said every president except three since Theodore Roosevelt
has used their authority to protect federal lands under the act. The
three exceptions, he said, were Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and
George Bush.
Babbitt dismissed suggestions that Tuesday's recommendations were an
effort to bolster Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites)'s
environmentalist credentials for his presidential campaign.