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Show Subpoened Monument Papers Show Designation Political Motivation, Possible Illegality The Garfield County News continues its in-depth coverage of the majority staff report issued Nov. 7 by the House Committee on Resources. The report covers documents subpoened from the Clinton Administration on the designation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, documents which, says Utah's Congressman Jim Hansen, clearly show the designation desig-nation was politically motivated and possibly illegal: "It's Politics, Stupid-Not The Environment" The records and documents provided by the CEQ and DOI clearly demonstrate that the Administration's Ad-ministration's goal was political, not environmental, a fact that contradicts the Congressional intent in-tent of the Antiquities Act. The Clinton White House took pains to ensure that all prominent Democrats from neighboring states were not only warned in advance, but had an opportunity to give their views on the designation. desig-nation. In an August 14, 1996, memorandum for the President, CEQ Chair Kathleen McGinty opines that the monument designation desig-nation would be politically popular popu-lar in several key Western states. In Ms. McGinty 's words: "This assessment squares with the positive reactions by Senator sic Harry Reid (D-NV), Governor Gover-nor Roy Romer(D-CO), and Representative Rep-resentative Bill Richardson (D-NM) (D-NM) when asked their views on the proposal. ..Governor Bob Miller's (D-NV) concern that Nevada's Ne-vada's sagebrush rebels would not approve of the new monument is almost certainly correct, and echoes ech-oes the concerns of other friends, but can be offset by the positive response in other constituencies." In fact, even non-incumbent Democratic candidates for office from states other than Utah were warned about the impending land grab. CEQ Chair Kathleen McGinty explained this in a moment of partisan candor in her September 6, 1996, White House weekly report: "I have called several members mem-bers of congress to give them notice no-tice of this story and am working with political affairs to determine is there are Democratic candidates candi-dates we should alert. We are neither confirming nor denying the story; just making sure the Democrats are not surprised." In fact, even non-incumbent Democratic candidates for office from states other than Utah were (See MONUMENT on Page 3A) Subpoened Monument Papers Show Political Motives From Front Page warned about the impending land grab. CEQ Chair Kathleen McGinty explained this in a moment of partisan candor in her September 6, 1996, White House weekly report: "I have called several members mem-bers of congress to give them notice of this story and am working with political affairs to determine is there are Democratic candidates we should alert. We are neither confirming nor denying deny-ing the story; just making sure the Democrats are not surprised." It was only Republicans, the lone Utah Democratic Member, and Utahns who were to be kept ' in the dark. Even media outlets ' like the Washington Post were advised by insiders to the Utah Monument decision as evidenced by electronic mail (e-mail) traffic: traf-fic: "Brian: So when pressed by Mark Udall and Maggie Fox on the Utah monument at yesterday's private ceremony for Mo Udall Clinton said: 'You don't know when to take yes for an answer.' Sounds to me like it's going forward. I also hear Romer is pushing the president to announce it when he's in Colorado Colo-rado on Wednesday... -Tom Ken-worthy" Ken-worthy" (Emphasis supplied) (September 10, 1996 From Brian Johnson (CEQ press) to others at CEQ transmitting e-mail from Washington Post reporter Tom Kenworthy) Another CEQ staffer commenting com-menting on the above e-mail: "Wow. He's got good sources sour-ces and a lot of nerve." (September (Sep-tember 10, 1996, response from Tcm Jensen to Brian Johnson's e-mail e-mail previously forwarded) The exchange continues: "south rim of the grand canyon, Sept 18th -- be there or be square." (Emphasis supplied) (September 11, 1996, e-mail from Tom Kenworthy to Brian Johnson) The exchange continues again: "Nice touch doing the Esca-lante Esca-lante Canyons announcement on the birthday of Utah's junior senator! Give me a call if you get a chance." (September 16, 1996, e-mail from Tom Kenworthy Ken-worthy to Brian Johnson) This e-mail traffic demonstrates demon-strates that by September 10 and 11, 1996, the Washington Post clearly had been notified not only that the decision has been made, but when and where the announcement an-nouncement would be. By contrast, con-trast, the Utah Congressional delegation was being told by Ms. McGinty and top CEQ staff on September 9 that no decision has been made and the delegation would be consulted prior to any announcement. Moreover, CEQ, White House Staff, and DOI officials met with Utah's delegation staff again on September 16, 1996-two days before the Utah Monument designation-and continued to deny that a decision had been made to go forward with the designation. Meeting notes taken by Tom Jensen of CEQ at the September 16, 1996, meeting indicate the following exchange between Senator Hatch and Kathleen McGinty.: Senator Hatch: "Can you give us an idea of what the POTUS (President) will do before he does it? Don't want to rely on press." Kathleen McGinty: "Yes. We need to caucus and will reengage." re-engage." This deception, a full week after the Washington Post knew all of the details of the Utah Monument designation and "Utah event," allowed the White House to move forward without Congressional Congres-sional intervention. In an August 14, 1996, memo to the President, CEQ Chair Kathleen McGinty candidly discusses dis-cusses the goal of the projectto positively impact the President's re-election campaign: "The political purpose of the Utah event is to show distinctly your willingness to use the office of the President to protect the environment. ...It is our considered assessment that an action of this type and scale would help to overcome the negative views toward the Administration created by the timber rider. Designation of the new monument would create a compelling reason for persons who are now disaffected to come around and enthusiastically enthusias-tically support the Administration Administra-tion ... Opposition to the designation will come from some of the same parties who have generally opposed the Administration's Administra-tion's natural resource and environmental envi-ronmental policies and who, in candor, are unlikely to support the Administration under any circumstances." circum-stances." (Emphasis supplied) Many of the documents attempt at-tempt to gauge the political impact im-pact of the action, yet the environmental envi-ronmental impact of the decision is rarely explored. Regardless of the environmental impact, the Clinton-Gore campaign needed the Utah Monument to shore up its political base in the environmental environ-mental movement. When environmental envi-ronmental impact is explored in some documents, they that the lands to be set aside under the designation are not environmentally environmen-tally threatened a sentiment echoed by CEQ Chair Kathleen McGinty herself in a March 25, 1996, e-mail: "I'm increasingly of the view that we should just drop these Utah ideas, we do not really know how the environs will react and I do think there is a danger of 'abuse' of the withdrawantiquities withdrawantiqui-ties authorities especially because be-cause these lands are not really endangered." (Emphasis supplied) sup-plied) In a March 22, 1996, e-mail, CEQ Associate Director for Public Lands Linda Lance agreed, warning against the Utah Monument designation because of the political impact of using the Act to set aside unthreatened lands: "...The real remaining question is not so much what this letter says, but the political consequences of designating these lands as monuments when they're not threatened with losing wilderness status, and they're probably not the areas of the country most in need of this designation, "presidents have not used their monument designation designa-tion authority in this way in the past only for large dramatic parcels that are threatened, do we risk a backlash from the bad guys if we do these-do they have the chance to suggest that this administration could use this authority all the time all over the country, and start to argue that the discretion is too broad?" (Emphasis supplied) However, sentiment changed a few days later. The March 27, 1996, e-mail from Linda Lance at CEQ to Kathleen McGinty who forwarded it to others at CEQ shows that DOI was keeping the Monument idea alive: "since I and I think others were persuaded at yesterday's meeting wInterior that we shouldn't write off the canyon-lands canyon-lands and arches monuments just yet, here's another try at a draft letter to Babbitt to get this process pro-cess started." (Emphasis supplied) sup-plied) Despite the fact that CEQ Chair advocated dropping the idea, and despite the fact that there is no indication that the President had given either CEQ or Interior any formal notice that he even knew about the idea, DOI was apparently pushing hard (behind the scenes) for this monument. Still there was no letter in March, April, May, June or July 1996 from the President to the Secretary directing work on designating a possible Utah Monument. Mon-ument. At a minimum, this is a violation of the spirit of NEPA, a statute that CEQ is responsible for implementing. Both DOI and CEQ knew it was a violation. Hence, the urgency in seeking the letter from the President to the Secretary directing him to undertake under-take work to designate the Utah Monument. |
