Environmentalists are hailing a U.S. Supreme Court decision they say puts another nail in the coffin of lawsuits challenging the president's authority to designate national monuments — including the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah.

"It vindicates President Clinton's use of the Antiquity Act, which has been under attack from conservative quarters and the Bush administration," said Jim Angell, attorney for Earthjustice, which intervened in the case on behalf of the government. "The courts have said it was a perfectly appropriate use of the act."

But those fighting national monument designations in court call that interpretation of the high court's action "laughable" and said the Supreme Court's decision not to hear the case "has no meaning whatsoever."

On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to hear a case filed by the Mountain States Legal Foundation of Denver against then-President Bill Clinton, charging Clinton violated the law when he used the Antiquities Act to protect more than 2 million acres in five Western states in 2000.

The Antiquities Act has been used by most presidents since Theodore Roosevelt, who first used it to create Devil's Tower National Monument in Wyoming. The lawsuit said Clinton violated various laws, among them the Antiquities Act and Endangered Species Act, when he made the proclamations.

The Washington, D.C., appeals court dismissed the case, ruling the Mountain States Legal Foundation case was inadequate. It was that ruling that was on appeal to the Supreme Court, not the merits of the case, said Perry Pendley, attorney for the foundation.

"All that it says is that the next time Mountain States files a case against a monument it had better file a better case," he said, adding the issue before the Supreme Court "was not an issue of whether the president has the authority to designate monuments. There has been no ruling on the merits of the case."

Pendley said the ruling should have no effect on a case currently in Utah's federal court, in which the Utah Association of Counties has challenged the legality of Clinton's 1996 proclamation designating the 1.9 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Kane and Garfield counties.

But Angell said the circuit court in Utah undoubtedly will listen to the "leading appellate court in the land, which spoke very clearly on the same issues in the Utah case. There is no reason why the Utah case should turn out differently."

"I won't say that it won't adversely affect us," said Mark Walsh with the Utah Association of Counties, "but I don't think it will decide our case. We have taken a different legal approach."

Unlike the Mountain States case, which has a relatively short legal life, the Utah case has been back and forth many times between the Utah judge and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

In the process, "by the time it goes to the Supreme Court, there will be an extensive federal and circuit court record" that will improve the chances of a hearing before the high court, he said.

Walsh said attorneys in the Utah case have discussed for some time the possible adverse impacts of a negative ruling in the Mountain States Legal Foundation case on the Utah case.

"We were always a little concerned about the Mountain States Legal Foundation case . . . and we have always known that it could be ruled on before our case ever got to where it needed to be," Walsh said.

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