This is the fifth part of the my series on the history of the Antiquities Act . The first four diaries are below
part 1
http://www.dailykos.com/...
part 2
http://www.dailykos.com/...
part 3
http://www.dailykos.com/...
part 4
http://www.dailykos.com/...
By the time President Clinton took office in 1993, it had been over a decade since a new national monument had been proclaimed by the president, due to reaction to Carters actions in Alaska. Both Reagan and Bush 41 did not create any new monuments, all the monuments created in that time were created by Congress. Clinton, who would eventually invoke the Antiquities Act more often than any other president except for FDR, did not create his first monument until the closing months of his first term. but that monument, Grand Staircase-Escalante, would set off a huge firestorm in Utah, and became the fourth major challenge to the Act legality, following the creation of Grand Canyon, Jackson Hole, and the creation of 17 monuments in Alaska by Carter.
Grand Staircase-Escalante was declared by Clinton on September 18,1996, in the midst of his re-election fight with Republican candidate Bob Dole. the state leaders in Utah were given just 24 hours prior notice, and the official proclamation took place, not in Utah, but at the Grand Canyon in Arizona. the size of the monument -1.7 million acres, the largest monument proclaimed in the lower 48 since Death Valley in 1933, the lack of prior notice, and the proclaiming of the monument from outside Utah, set off a huge outcry in Utah. Clinton ended up losing Utah by over 20 points, but its unlikely that he would have done much better in Utah even if he had declared the monument in Utah or given Utah's leaders more advance notice. Utah politically is simply a extremely conservative state. Within a few months, a number of lawsuit were filed in court seeking to overturn the designation, and Utahs representatives and senators assailed Clintons move in Congress and threatened to abolish the Antiquities Act, a move Clinton made very clear he would veto.
in the end despite the rancors and threats, Congress passed legislation that did a number of land swaps around the monument, trading Utah Schools land within the new monument for federal land elsewhere in the state, the end result expanded the monument by 200000 acres to 1.9M in size. In court, the Utah Association of Counties challenged the monument on several grounds, claiming the Antiquities Act was unconstitutional, that Clinton had violated the Act by declaring such a large area as a monument, and that he had violated several other laws, including the Land Policy and Management Act, the Environmental Policy Act, and the Wilderness Act among others.
in 2004 the District Court in Utah rejected those claims, pointing out that the President satisfied the Act's requirements: conserving objects of historic or scientific interest, and setting aside an area in order to conserve them that is the smallest necessary for that purpose. The court also pointed out that the review of monuments by the courts is limited to determining whether the President invoked his powers under the Act, if so, the court is bound by precedent in Cameron vs US to uphold the monument. The court reaffirmed the legality of the Act,as well as the wide scope of it, and made it clear that only Congress may change or abolish the Act, something that in practice is very unlikely to happen , because no president that isnt a Tea Party loon will agree to it.
After Congress in essence accepted the monument by passing the land swap legislation, Clinton did not set aside another monument until early in 2000, when he set aside Agria Fria and Grand Canyon-Parashant in Arizona and California Coastal in California. over the course of the year 2000 Clinton set aside 8 more monuments- Giant Sequoia(California) in April, Hanford Reach (Washington), Canyons of the Ancients (Colorado),Cascade-Siskiyou (Oregon), and Ironwood Forest (Arizona) in June. Soldiers Home (DC) in July,Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains (California) in October and Vermillion Cliffs (Arizona ) in November. Clinton added 7 more monuments in the final couple weeks in office in 2001,in California (Carrizo Plain),Arizona (Sonoran Desert), Montana (Pompeys Piller and Upper Missouri River Breaks),New Mexico (Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks) and the Virgin Islands (Virgin Islands Coral Reef). his 19th and final monument was Governors island in New York City, created on his final full day in office. in all Clinton created or expanded 22 monuments , only FDR (28) has used the Act more. But his first monument was his largest, most controversial and most historic(it was the first monument given to the Bureau of Land Management to manage).
Clinton, like Carter, FDR and Teddy Roosevelt before him, won the day when his monument was challenged in court, and while there are many in Utah who still resent Clinton's move, like current Utah Rep. Rob Bishop, in the end Clinton was within his right to set it aside. No monument has been created in Utah since then, although there are a number of viable candidates, such as San Rafeal Swell, Cedar Mesa, Greater Canyonlands, Glen Canyon, Desolation Canyon, and Bears Ears that deserve monument status. Whether Obama will set some or all of those areas aside in a midnight flurry similar to Clinton's is uncertain at this time.
when George W Bush succeeded Clinton, he was, at best, ambivalent about the Act. he certainly disagreed with the large number of monuments Clinton had created as well as their size (Grand Canyon-Parashant and Grand Staircase Escalante were both over 1M acres). Bush's first monument did not come until after his re-election in 2004, when he set aside African Burial Ground in new York City as a monument, at less than 0.5 acres, it is one of the smallest monuments in the system, and it was dwarfed by his first term efforts to open up ANWR to drilling and to increase drilling on public lands.
Bush, like many presidents before him, came to appreciate the Act late in his tenure, and use it to set areas aside. Bush was the first president to create marine monuments (protected areas consisting primarily of water). His first such monument in 2006, Northwest Hawaiian Islands Marine, upgraded an area Clinton had set aside as a refuge, its size 140000 sq miles, was larger than all the other parks and monuments in the parks system combined, by a wide margin. the monument was renamed Papahanaumokuakea Marine in 2007. Bush added 3 more marine monuments and one more land monument in his tenure, the World War 2 Valor in the Pacific monument, created to mark the 67th anniversary of Pearl Harbor is notable because it was the first monument created in Alaska since ANILCA's passage in 1980. the three marine monuments- Marinas Trench Marine(95000 sq miles), Pacific Remote (87000 sq miles) and Rose Atoll Marine (13400 sq miles), combine to create the largest protected marine area in the world. Obama has since greatly expanded Remote Islands Marine in size to 490000 sq miles.
This concludes the look at Clinton and Bush and now brings us up to Obama, who will be covered in part 6- Obama and the Future of the Antiquities Act. In short, as long as the Democrats control the White House, the Act will remain, but its survival can not be guaranteed with a conservative Republican president, given longstanding attempts by the Republicans to gut or abolish the Act. However given the lack of push-back by Republicans in Congress to Bush's huge marine monuments, its possible the Act will remain, just be rarely used or unused at all.
As Always , I look forward to feedback input and comments. See You In the comments!