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Federal land manager defends Clinton's monuments to USU students
By the USU Communication Department
President Clinton's declaration of national monuments in the West is part of an attempt to leave an environmental legacy, the official in charge of federal land and minerals management said Tuesday. Clinton's January creation of the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, north and west of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, has drawn criticism from conservatives and the ranching and grazing industries, but future generations will applaud, said Pat Shea, deputy assistant director of the Interior Department. Shea, who oversees the Bureau of Land Management, Minerals Management Services and the Office of Surface Mining, answered questions from Utah State University students during a visit to Logan. He described southern Utah, home to three national parks as well as thousands of acres of federally protected lands, as "a unique national asset for ecotourism." In banning development and mining in the forest, deserts and cliffs of Parashant, Clinton said, "Ten thousand or twenty thousand years from now, no one will remember who set aside this land but children will still enjoy it." Clinton also extended national monument status to Agua Fria National Monument in Arizona, and created the 840-mile California Coastal National Monument of rocky outcroppings. In 1996, Clinton created an uproar among southern Utah mining and ranching interests when he created the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Shea brought historical perspective to the issue. He recalled that when the Grand Tetons were declared a national monument, on their way to status as a national park, civic leaders in nearby Jackson, Wyo., initially grabbed their guns for a showdown with the U.S. government. The crisis ended peacefully after a week, and over the decades the town has embraced the benefits of federal protection, Shea said. Still, advocates of greater land use feel threatened today, he said. In recent years, Shea said he has traveled with a bodyguard in the Intermountain West, but did not have one in Logan. He said he realizes that existing private uses of federal lands cannot be trampled. "The creation of monuments will have to respect pre-existing rights," he said. Designation of federal lands as national monuments "will stop the expansion of ranching and grazing activities. And there will be a very concerted effort to buy these permits out." Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, Shea's boss, has kept the list of future sites being considered for monument status secret, refusing to divulge them even to members of Congress, Shea said. He said he considers that the correct thing to do, to prevent political struggles over administrative decisions. Babbitt, a Clinton appointee, and Utah's Republican Gov. Mike Leavitt have surprisingly found common ground, Shea said. Both have rural Western backgrounds and a love for the high desert of northern Arizona and southern Utah, and the two have been able to set aside much of their partisan differences in discussing the management of federal lands in the West, Shea said. As evidence, he pointed to Leavitt's announcement this week of a swap of federal- and Utah-owned lands that would benefit the state treasury. Shea was openly partisan in his remarks, suggesting that if Republican George W. Bush is elected president, he would allow private interests more access to federal lands for profit. Still, as a public official and a public servant, Shea said he is willing to let voters decide their future.
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Archived Months:
September
1998 |
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