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Lawsuit Challenges Clinton's National Monument Legacy
Thursday, August 31, 2000
By MICHAEL DOYLE
WASHINGTON -- President Clinton's legacy of creating sprawling new national
monuments, like the one in California's Sequoia National Forest, is now being
challenged on constitutional grounds.
Opponents of the new monuments are suing Clinton in federal court in
Washington for what they say is his unconstitutionally ambitious use of the
1906 Antiquities Act. Clinton has used the law this year to create the
328,000-acre Giant Sequoia National Monument, the 195,000-acre Hanford Reach
National Monument in Washington and others.
"The Antiquities Act was written for antiquities," William Perry Pendley,
president of the Denver-based Mountain States Legal Foundation, said
Thursday. "It was not written to set aside vast expanses of territory because
it's pretty or has old trees."
A conservative group that's historically received funding from companies
including Texaco, Exxon, Chevron and the Coors Foundation, the Mountain
States Legal Foundation has previously challenged other monument designations
by Clinton.
All told, Clinton has used the unilateral powers provided by the 1906 law to
designate 3.7 million acres as national monuments. With about five months
left in his presidency, this is more than any of his predecessors except
President Jimmy Carter.
"All of them are worthy of protection," Council on Environmental Quality
spokeswoman Mary Hanley said Thursday, adding that "we certainly don't agree"
with the thrust of the newly filed suit.
The lawsuit specifically targets the Hanford monument and three others
established this year in Arizona, Oregon and Colorado. The Giant Sequoia
monument established in April is not included in the lawsuit, but San Joaquin
Valley opponents of the new monument are closely tracking the latest legal
arguments.
"We're going to see how that flies," said Fresno resident Tom Barile,
chairman of a coalition that's fought the Giant Sequoia monument. "If it
doesn't work, then we'll try something else."
Barile's group, the Sierra Nevada Access, Multiple-Use and Stewardship
Coalition, now claims about 82 organizations as members. Barile said the
group's possible own legal challenge to the Giant Sequoia monument might
develop over the next several months, based on grounds similar to those
included in the new lawsuit.
Barile said he is also still waiting for government agencies to respond to
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for documents related to the Giant
Sequoia monument. The Council on Environmental Quality has likewise not yet
provided documents in response to a FOIA request filed by the Bee last March.
So far, no legal challenge - or, for the most part, legislative challenge -
has succeeded against the 100-plus national monuments created under the 1906
law. The simply worded law authorizes presidents, acting without
congressional approval, to protect "objects of historic or scientific
interest" by designating national monuments "which in all cases shall be
confined to the smallest area compatible with ... proper care and management
of the objects to be protected."
The Mountain States Legal Foundation contends Clinton exceeded his
constitutional authority by going far beyond this "smallest area" language in
creating large monuments. The core legal question is: When Congress uses such
vague words, where does the president's discretion end?
A 1920 Supreme Court decision involving the Grand Canyon has persuaded
officials since that the president enjoys great leeway in determining a
monument's size. Pendley, though, contends Congress has subsequently
clarified that a president's environmental actions including Antiquities Act
declarations must be more tightly constrained.
� 2000 Scripps-McClatchy Western Service
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snare and a delusion, a fraud upon the nation. Our two parties have become
nothing but two wings of the same bird of prey...
Patrick Buchanan
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