Summarized from BNA Environmental Reporter, April 23, 2004:
A federal court has upheld Bill Clinton's use of the 1906 Antiquities Act to designated almost 2 million acres of UTah lands off limits to development. The US District court said "the president unquiestionably had the authority to do what he did under the antiquities act."
The Utah Association of Counties and the Mountain States Legal Foundations said the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was created primarily to protect wilderness, not "objects of historic and scientific interest," as the law requires. They also claimed that Clinton disregarded language requiring that he set aside "the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected."
Clinton cited "geological treasures" and "world clas paleontological sites" when he created the 1.7 million-acre monument.
Clinton used the 1906 law to create or expand 18 national monuments, and set aside more protected federal land than any president in history.
Take that BigDirtyCo.com! [img]tongue.gif[/img] (erm.. that last bit wan't in the BNA Reporter of course
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