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Wednesday, March 24, 1999
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Babbitt defends land withdrawal
By Clyde Weiss
Donrey Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is defending his decision to temporarily shield from land speculators more than a half-million acres along the north rim of the Grand Canyon.
Babbitt said Tuesday that his December order to set aside 605,350 acres in Arizona for two years was necessary to prevent investors from staking mining claims in hopes of selling them back to the government before the land can be placed into a new national monument.
Grazing and hunting could continue in a national monument, but mining and logging would be banned.
"This is the Grand Canyon," Babbitt said, "and I must tell you, the prospect of ... mining being put on the very rim of the Grand Canyon is something that I don't think could ever be in the nation's interest."
The secretary's remarks were made at a hearing before two House subcommittees, which are considering whether the executive branch has too much control over federal land withdrawal decisions.
Since December 1998, Babbitt has used his authority under a 1976 law to withdraw more than 1 million acres of public lands in Arizona and Montana. That action, limited to two years, has kept the land from speculators without requiring Babbitt to first obtain approval from Congress.
Rep. James Hansen, R-Utah, chairman of the national parks, forests and lands subcommittee, said Babbitt can circumvent Congress merely by publishing a notice every two years of his intention to withdraw land from certain public uses.
"Now the only effective way Congress has to exercise oversight over (land) withdrawals is to pass legislation and then get the necessary two-thirds vote to override a presidential veto," Hansen complained.
The Grand Canyon land withdrawal is "a good example of how (the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976) is not working to prevent executive abuse of withdrawal powers," Hansen said.
But Babbitt defended his authority to withdraw lands. He cited instances of land speculation abuses that could have been avoided had such powers existed earlier.
As an example, Babbitt cited the case of "an Arizonan, subsequently a United States senator, a crook of the first order" by the name of Ralph Cameron, who staked mining claims around 1890 on land along the south rim of the Grand Canyon.
Rather than search for minerals, Cameron used his claims to "mine the pockets of tourists ... by controlling access and charging fees for use of the Bright Angel Trail," Babbitt said.
Cameron eventually was "ruled out by the Supreme Court of the United States," Babbitt said. But that took 20 years.
"It's that kind of fraud -- and there is no other word for it ... that led me to the conclusion that it was now appropriate to enter a segregation order" to protect the north rim.
The Interior Department is proposing to designate that land the Arizona Strip National Monument, although others are calling it the proposed Shivwits Plateau National Monument.
The area includes about 400,000 acres of land on the Shivwits Plateau, north of the Colorado River, administered by the Bureau of Land Management. It also would include the rims of the northwestern part of the Grand Canyon that are within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area and administered by the National Park Service.
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