A group of conservative land users called the Western State Coalition announced Thursday it was filing a lawsuit challenging President Clinton's authority to create the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
Coalition founder and chairman Met Johnson, a former legislator from St. George, said the president's unilateral decree violates the Antiquities Act of 1906, which was the basis of the monument declaration.The coalition intends to argue in federal court that the 1906 law limits the power of the president to protect certain lands and requires that any designation "be confined to the smallest area" possible.
The declaration setting aside 1.7 million acres for the new Utah monument is overly broad, according to the coalition. It supports a smaller monument covering about 300,000 acres.
Also, the coalition lawsuit questions the process by which the monument was designated, particularly the lack of public input. Joining in the suit is the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a nonprofit public interest legal center based in Denver.