Utah's congressmen are still seething over President Bill Clinton's Sept. 18 executive order creating the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah (OGJ, Mar. 24, 1997, p. 69).
They are all the more angry because there is little they can do about it. The 1906 Antiquities Act allows the President to create monuments to protect unique resources, and Clinton used it to lock up 1.7 million acres.
Congressmen have responded with bills to limit those powers.
The area includes eight oil wells and thousands of acres of leases. Conoco Inc. has staked two 14,000-ft wildcats in the region and has said reserves could be as much as 4 billion bbl of oil.
The area also has the largest known untapped coal field in the U.S., with 11-62 billion tons of sweet coal valued at as much as $320 million.
Clinton pledged that existing federal mineral leases would be honored, but companies are concerned about the details. Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) has filed a bill to ensure oil and gas activities would be allowed.
Complaints aired
Last week, Rep. James Hansen (R-Utah), chairman of the House national parks subcommittee, held an oversight hearing.It was, an environmentalist said, "an act of political revenge, pure and simple."
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) charged Clinton acted "without any notification, let alone consultation or negotiation, with our governor or state officials."
Sen. Bennett said that when he asked administration officials about rumors of an announcement, he repeatedly was told no decision was imminent. Gov. Mike Leavitt got the same runaround. Finally, the day before the announcement, he was told it was under consideration. Then Clinton called Leavitt at 2 a.m. Sept. 18 but even then indicated a decision had not been made.
That afternoon Clinton signed the executive order at a press conference held on the north rim of the Grand Canyon.
Interior Sec. Bruce Babbitt said the monument will be the first to be operated by the Bureau of Land Management, rather than the National Park Service, because BLM already oversees the federal lands.
Bennett asked, "What happens if Conoco hits with its deep well and we flood over with oil. How do they deal with that?"
Motives debated
The Utah congressmen said the episode was driven by pure politics.As Hatch explained, Clinton wanted "to score political points with a powerful interest group (environmentalists) 48 days before a national election."
Why else, they asked, did he keep it secret, stage the announcement in Arizona, and fail to invite major Utah politicians, all of which but one were Republicans?
Babbitt and Kathleen McGinty, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, explained Clinton was concerned a Utah wilderness bill would have allowed the transfer of federal lands to the state for coal leasing.
But Sen. Bennett replied, "That bill was a dead issue in the Congress at the time." He was right.
When Babbitt denied Clinton's action was politically motivated, spectators at the hearing burst out in laughter.
Copyright 1997 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
