WASHINGTON -- It's said elephants have long memories. And Republicans, whose mascot is the elephant, also can't forget or forgive President Clinton's surprise creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument three years ago.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, introduced a bill Thursday to strip presidents of their power to create monuments without congressional approval.After the monument was first formed, a flurry of similar bills appeared in both houses. None passed into law, although the House once passed one sponsored by Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah.
Murkowski and Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, who co-sponsored the new bill, said Thursday they still feel such legislation is needed to ensure presidents don't create monuments without consulting the public first, which they say Clinton did in Utah.
The Clinton administration, in fact, testified in hearings that it felt it had to keep its actions secret or the Utah delegation might somehow block it. That had Republicans howling that several environmental review laws were broken.
Republicans also accused the administration of flat-out lying (and not just seeking secrecy) when it said in the week before the monument was formed -- just before the 1996 election -- that nothing imminent was planned.
Murkowski said Tuesday, "Where was the public participation in the designation of 1.7 million acres of federal land in Utah? Where was the review of the environmental consequences?"
He contends that National Environmental Policy Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and other laws require public hearings and reviews before such massive actions are taken -- although the administration contends the Antiquities Act of 1906 allows presidents to form monuments with no public review.
Murkowski said, "Under our legislation, the administration will no longer be able to sidestep public participation or environmental reviews to further a political agenda or cater to special interests."
His bill requires that before a monument may be formed, public lands agencies must gather and analyze resource data; the public must be allowed to comment on the data and reviews; and Congress must approve formation of a monument.
Murkowski said he is not only upset with Clinton, but with action in 1978 by President Carter to declare 17 national monuments totaling 55 million acres in his home state of Alaska.
"These acres were withdrawn from multiple use without any input from the people of Alaska, the public or the Congress; and it occurred while Congress was considering legislation affecting these lands," Murkowski told the Senate Thursday.
"Twenty years later, my state is still struggling to cope with the weight of those decisions," he said.