[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 125 (Thursday, September 18, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H7590-H7591]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              GRAND STAIRCASE-ESCALANTE NATIONAL MONUMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Utah [Mr. Hansen] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  (Mr. HANSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. HANSEN. Mr. Speaker, on September 18, 1996, one year ago today, 
President Clinton, claiming authority under the Antiquities Act, stood 
on the south side of the Grand Canyon of Arizona and designated 1.7 
million acres of southern Utah as a national monument.
  Over at the Committee on Resources, we have met with administration 
officials, held hearings, and subpoenaed documents in an effort to sort 
this thing out. I thought it might be appropriate, since today is the 
anniversary of that unprecedented election year stunt, to say a few 
words about what we have been able to come up with.
  The first time I or any other Utah official heard about the National 
Monument was on September 7, 1996, when the Washington Post published 
an article announcing that President Clinton was about to use the 
Antiquities Act of 1906 to create a 2-million-acre national monument in 
southern Utah.
  Naturally, we are all somewhat concerned. In fact, I think most of us 
found it a little hard to believe. Surely the President would have the 
decency to at least let the citizens of Utah know if he were 
considering a move that would affect them so greatly.
  When we expressed our concern to the Clinton administration, they 
denied they had even heard about such a thing. They tried to make it 
look like the monument was some kind of nebulous idea that was being 
kicked around, but that we should not really take it too seriously or 
worry about it. As late as September 11, Secretary of Interior Bruce 
Babbitt wrote to Utah Senator Bennett and pretty much told him that.
  Within the confines of the administration, however, it was clear the 
monument was a go. The real issue was keeping it a secret from the rest 
of the world. By July 1996 the Department of Interior had already hired 
law professor Charles Wilkinson to draw up the President's National 
Monument proclamation. In a letter written to Professor Wilkinson 
asking him to draw up the Proclamation, DOI Solicitor John Leshy wrote: 
``I can't emphasize confidentiality too much. If word leaks out, it 
probably won't happen, so take care.''
  When I say that the Clinton administration went to great lengths to 
keep everyone in the dark, I should probably qualify that a little. On 
August 5, 1996, CEQ chair Katy McGinty wrote a memo to Marcia Hale 
telling her to call some key western Democrats to get their reactions 
to the monument idea. There was conspicuous absence on her list, 
however, of anyone from the State of Utah. Not the governor, not the 
senators, not the Congressmen, not the Speaker of the House, not the 
President, nobody. Even the Democratic Congressman, Bill Orton, was 
kept in the dark. Clinton did not want to take any chances.
  In the memo, Ms. McGinty emphasized that it should be kept secret, 
saying that ``Any public release of the information would probably make 
the President change his options.''

                              {time}  1915

  Why, you ask, did President Clinton want to keep this secret from the 
rest of the world? Because it would ruin their timing. This 
announcement was a political election year stunt and those type of 
things have to be planned and timed perfectly. If news of the monument 
were to break too early, it would be old news by the time Bill Clinton 
did his photo op on the site of the Grand Canyon.
  Let us back up and ask ourselves why President Clinton wanted to 
create this new 1.7 million acre national monument. The administration 
claimed it was to protect the land. For example, at our hearing this 
year, Katy McGinty said, ``By last year the lands were in real 
jeopardy.''
  That sounds great, but the truth is the land was not in any danger. 
Even if it were, national monument status would not do anything to 
protect it. If anything, it takes away protection. We have requested 
documents from the administration where they admit to both

[[Page H7591]]

of those points. Take for example a March 25, 1996 E-mail message about 
the proposed Utah national monument from Katy McGinty that said this:
  ``I do think there is a danger of abuse of the withdrawal, especially 
because these lands are not really endangered.'' There we have it, in 
Katy McGinty's own words. The administration did not think the land was 
in any real danger or in any jeopardy.
  Okay, so the administration did not really think the lands involved 
were in any real danger. Let us just ignore that for a moment and 
pretend that the lands were in some sort of danger and ask ourselves if 
creating a monument out of these lands was a good idea.
  Does it stop coal mining in the area? No. You can still mine. Does it 
stop mineral development? No. Conoco is drilling oil wells on the Grand 
Staircase-Escalante right now. Does it stop grazing on the land? No. 
Does it stop people from visiting the area? No. Quite to the contrary, 
people are coming by the millions now to see it. Roads are all over the 
place since Bill Clinton created this to protect the land. What a joke.
  What is the administration talking about when they say they needed to 
create a national monument to protect these lands? The land was not in 
any danger, and even if it were, a national monument was the least 
effective tool.
  All right, so we have seen the administration did not create the 
monument because they thought the land was in any danger. Why did they 
do it then? They thought it would help Bill Clinton with the upcoming 
presidential election. Katy McGinty wrote to Leon Panetta on September 
9, 1996 and said: ``The political purpose of the Utah event is to show 
the President's willingness to use his office to protect the 
environment.''
  Clinton figured he could get some extra votes from the 
environmentalists around the country at very little cost. He figured it 
might give him an edge in some of the close states. He picked Utah for 
his stunt because he knew he didn't have a snowball's chance in Hades 
of winning the state. He was probably still a little sore about the 
fact that during the 1992 election Utah was the only state where he 
came in third place. There you are. Free environmental votes in 49 
states and the 50th state he didn't have a chance at winning anyway.
  Why did he pick the National Monument idea when it actually protected 
the land less than the other options available to him? . . . Because it 
was more dramatic. Most armchair environmentalists don't understand the 
complexities of natural resource law. It just wouldn't have had the 
same effect if Clinton would have had the Secretary of Interior sit at 
his desk and say ``pursuant to 43 U.S.C. 1701 Sec. 204(e), I hereby 
withdraw the Kaiparowits plateau from mineral entry under 30 U.S.C. 
22.'' No, it wouldn't have been nearly as picturesque. The armchair 
environmentalist would have scratched his head and switched the channel 
to catch the second half of the Steelers-Broncos game. No, the Clinton 
administration needed to do something dramatic to get their votes. Bill 
Clinton needed to stand there overlooking the Grand Canyon, with the 
wind blowing through his hair, telling everyone how he was following in 
Teddy Roosevelt's footsteps and saving the land by creating a new 
national monument. How profound. How courageous. It kind of brings a 
tear to the eye, doesn't it. Never mind the fact that creating this 
monument didn't really achieve any of the administration's stated 
objectives. Chances were that no one would figure that out until after 
the election anyway.
  Well, people are starting to figure it out now. For instance, last 
week I read an article in the Salt Lake Tribune where a spokesman for 
the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance called Clinton and Gore 
``election-year environmentalists'' because CONOCO is being allowed to 
drill for oil in the monument. Remember, these are the same people that 
were cheering and crying and hugging each other at the Grand Canyon a 
year ago. Today they are beginning to realize that they were all 
duped--that this was nothing but an election year stunt and that 
national monument status doesn't do anything for their cause.
  Many people have asked me why we passed the Antiquities Act in the 
first place if it allows this kind of abuse. Well, the answer is that 
the people that passed it didn't anticipate these kinds of problems. 
The Antiquities Act was passed back when we had very few environmental 
laws and few ways to preserve our lands.
  The language of the Antiquities Act allows presidents to ``declare by 
public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric 
structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest . . . 
to be national monuments''. The size of such withdrawals would be in 
all cases ``confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper 
care and management of the objects to be protected.''
  Notice two very important points here. First, the Antiquities Act was 
designed to preserve specific objects. Second, it mandated that the 
President use the smallest amount of land necessary to preserve those 
specific objects. Using this criteria, lets look at three national 
monuments that have been declared by presidents in the past.
  How about Devils Tower National Monument, proclaimed by Theodore 
Roosevelt in 1906? What does it protect? . . . It protects a 865-foot 
tower of columnar rock in Wyoming. This basalt tower is the remains of 
an ancient volcanic intrusion, . . . O.K. we have a specific 
recognizable object that is being protected here. Sounds like it meets 
the criteria. How much land is included in the monument? 1,347 acres. 
Sounds pretty reasonable.
  How about Statute of Liberty National Monument, proclaimed in 1924 by 
Calvin Coolidge? What does it protect? . . . Statute of Liberty 
National Monument protects the famous 152-foot copper statue bearing 
the torch of freedom. The statue was a gift from the French people in 
1886 to commemorate the alliance between France and the United States 
during the American Revolution. Seen by millions of immigrants as they 
came to the new world, it has become famous as a symbol of freedom. How 
much land? . . . 59 acres. Wow. That sounds pretty good.
  O.K. Just to be fair, lets look at the new Grand Staircase-Escalante 
National Monument, proclaimed in 1996 by William Jefferson Clinton. 
What objects does it protect? . . . Hmmmm . . . Come to think of it, I 
have absolutely no idea . . . Do you? . . . Does anyone? . . . O.K. 
forget that question for a minute, and lets look at how much land we 
need to protect these ``objects'' that no one can name . . . 1.7 
million acres . . . One Million Seven Hundred Thousand acres!!!! . . . 
Wouldn't you say that's maybe just a little bit excessive. That's about 
as much land as the states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined! 
There's no way anyone could possibly tell me this is the smallest 
amount of land necessary to protect whatever those ``objects'' are that 
no one can name.
  I think that people intuitively know what national monuments are all 
about. During the past year I've spent quite a bit of time on that 
land. People kept coming up to me and asking where the monument was. I 
told them ``you're standing on it''. They looked at me incredulously 
and said ``what am I supposed to look at?'' You see, they know that 
national monuments are supposed to protect specific objects, and they 
want someone to show them those objects. I don't know what to tell 
them? The best I can do is say ``Darned if I know. Let me know if you 
figure it out.''
  Well, this whole thing is now history. Bill Clinton had his photo-op 
at the Grand Canyon, bypassed Congressional power over the public 
lands, got the few extra votes he needed, and won the election. 
Meanwhile, the land isn't protected, hundreds of thousands of acres of 
private and state school trust land are hanging in limbo, and we are 
all wondering how we can stop this sort of thing from happening again.
  O.K. . . . so, what can we do to stop this? . . . I have a bill, H.R. 
1127, that will be coming to the floor in the coming of weeks that I 
think will go a long way toward fixing the Antiquities Act to prevent 
Presidential abuse.
  H.R. 1127 is a good piece of legislation. During the debate on the 
floor you are going to hear all kinds of rhetoric about how my bill is 
anti-environmental. As you can see, that's ridiculous. This debate 
isn't about the environment. This is about Presidential abuse of power. 
We shouldn't allow a President to use our public lands as political 
pawns.
  Protect our public lands and protect the democratic process. Support 
H.R. 1127.

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