President Clinton Set to Declare New National Monuments 

By Ralph Maughan

January 9, 2000

Copyright © Ralph Maughan

In 1969, President Lyndon Johnson greatly enlarged Capitol Reef National Monument in southern Utah to include the Waterpocket Fold, pictured above. After much protesting how the addition of this "prime grazing" land to the National Park System would devastate southern Utah, the Utah congressional delegation had the monument made into a National Park. On the same day, Johnson expanded Arches National Monument in Utah to the size of what is now Arches National Park.

In 1996 the President sparked controversy and praise when he used this power to create the vast Escalante/Grand Staircase National Monument in southern Utah.

The largest of the new national monuments will probably on the "Arizona strip," a large swath of virtually uninhabited land between the southern border of Utah and the Grand Canyon to the south in Arizona.

The 1-million acre national monument will be named the Parashant National Monument.

Presently this scenic area of federal land is used mostly for recreation and low value grazing of livestock in the rocky desert.

Although many politicians from the interior Western United States criticized Clinton's previous action and proposed action, the power for the President to create national monuments, both large and small, has been exercised by the large majority of Presidents since the passage of the act back in 1906.

President Theodore Roosevelt used this newly gained power to create most of what became the major national parks of the West. Like Clinton, Roosevelt was similarly criticized for exercising "tyrannical" presidential authority.

Roosevelt used the Act to create what later became Grand Canyon National Park, Olympic National Park, Crater Lake National Park, and 13 other national monuments.

Thirteen of the 16 Presidents since Roosevelt also established new National Monuments.

More than any other state, Utah has been singled out by Presidents to create national monuments. Other than Canyonlands National Park, all of the units of the National Park System in Utah, such as Zion National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, and Arches National Park, began by presidential proclamation and were generally greeted by jeers that Utah's rural economy would be ruined. Ironically, Utah is one of the most urban states in America. It is also one of the states with the highest proportion of U.S. public land.

Perhaps the most bitter national monument was Grand Teton National Monument.  In 1924, Congress created a small Grand Teton National Park which included only the east slope of the Teton Range and none of Jackson Hole, the broad valley at the base of the Tetons.

In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared the publicly owned portion of Jackson Hole, "Grand Teton National Monument." Wyoming's lone U.S Representative compared Roosevelt to Adolf Hitler and ranchers held illegal cattle drives through the monument. After unsuccessfully trying to pass a law to rescind FDR's actions, in 1950 the present Grand Teton National Park was created by Congress with special rights in the park given to politically influential residents of Jackson Hole.

Sand Creek in the Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument proclaimed by President Clinton in 1996. This 1.8-million acre national monument is in extreme southern Utah.

Copyright © Ralph Maughan

CNN Story on Clinton's Probable Action. Jan. 7, 2000