Living with the monument

No one should be terribly surprised at U.S. District Judge Dee Benson's ruling this week that President Bill Clinton acted within the law when he created the mammoth Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument in Southern Utah in 1996. The Antiquities Act, passed in 1906 at the urging of Theodore Roosevelt, grants presidents the power to create national monuments with the stroke of a pen.

That doesn't make what Clinton did right. It just means Utahns have to learn to live with it and to make the best of it.

As years roll by, people will forget, or perhaps misunderstand, the widespread opposition in Utah to this monument. It had very little to do with the need to preserve much of the land within the monument, which is spectacular and awe-inspiring. It had everything to do with the way Clinton treated Utahns in the process — as little more than an insignificant species that happened to live near the monument he was creating.

There can be little doubt he created the monument to shore up his political strength among environmentalists during an election year. He never consulted with any member of Utah's congressional delegation, including the lone Democrat, Bill Orton, who subsequently lost his seat because of the monument. He never spoke to Utah's governor. He didn't even set foot in the state. His press conference announcing the monument was held at the Grand Canyon.

His designation was grand, indeed. It included wide swaths of land that did not have to be declared monumental. It also locked away significant natural resources, such as coal in the Kaiparowits Plateau, that might have provided a significant economic boon to nearby struggling communities. The people who live there might have appreciated at least a chance to speak at a public hearing or two.

In short, the whole episode seemed as undemocratic and arbitrary as a tornado, and the victims in its path can't easily forget it.

We are aware, however, that the monument played much differently outside the state. At the time, editorialists and columnists almost unanimously praised it. It "could be among the most significant environmental actions taken by the Clinton administration," said the Omaha World-Herald. It was a "major affirmative step" for a president who had been mostly "playing defense on environmental issues," said the Washington Post.

The same will be true of the people who come to see the monument. They no doubt will be impressed by its grandeur. They won't care how it was created or what the arguments were at the time. They are likely to leave with a greater appreciation for nature and for Utah's place in the union.

Even if it masks other important issues and considerations, this isn't such a bad outcome.