"Obviously, there would be a lot of discussion and debate over that kind of proposal," Peacock said. But America needs to look at alternatives to the present way of doing business, he said.

Development in national monuments "seems grossly short-sighted," said Scott Groene, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

Whenever the Antiquities Act has been used to protect land, he said, eventually "those decisions have come to be appreciated across the West."

That is true from Grand Staircase National Monument to Capitol Reef, Grand Teton and Canyonlands national parks, he said.

While the present Congress has demonstrated a willingness to roll back environmental laws, he said, "I don't think they would go this far."

Richard Mayol, communications director for the Grand Canyon Trust, which is interested in the entire Colorado Plateau, including Utah, said allowing development in monuments would "exploit the current energy crunch and allow big oil to stockpile leases while the getting is good.

"More than 42 million acres of federal public lands are currently under lease for oil and gas," he continued, "and as of 2004, only 11.6 million acres were in production."

Mayol, contacted by telephone at the group's Flagstaff, Ariz., headquarters, said the trust understands that America "has a need for new exploration now," but charged that the oil and gas industry has a huge surplus of areas where it has permission to explore, and has not been drilling.

He added that he would like to see Congress focus their attention on renewable resources and not oil and gas.

---

E-mail: bau@desnews.com; spang@desnews.com