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House refuses to block funding for monuments
WASHINGTON - The House on Thursday refused to block funding for the Hanford Reach and other new national monuments, or limit President Clifton's ability under a 94-year-old law to create them. The action came less than a week after Clinton designated the Reach as a national monument that includes the 51-mile stretch of the Columbia River and about 200,000 acres of the adjacent Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The proposed curb, in the $14.6 billion interior appropriations bill, would have barred funding for design, planning or management of any national monuments created since 1999 under the 1906 Antiquities Act. Conservative, mostly Western Republicans, angry over what they consider Clinton's overuse and abuse of the law, had offered the provision. In the end, however, 46 moderate Republicans, many from the East, joined Democrats in eliminating the proposal on a 243-177 vote. "This would effectively repeal recent monument designations," Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, said during floor debate. "This is a clever approach. The president of the United States clearly has the authority under the Antiquities Act. The majority party (Republicans) should repeal the act if that's what they want to do." Dicks offered the amendment to strike the GOP provision. "If this passes, we have essentially gutted or neutered the Antiquities Act," Dicks said. The 1906 law allows a president to create national monuments without congressional approval. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Pasco, whose district includes the Reach, said Clinton's use of the act amounts to an "abuse of power and process by this president. It is a slap in the face to the people who live and work in the area." Hastings said the 51-mile Reach, which provides spawning habitat for one of the region's healthiest salmon runs, was already protected by a 1995 law passed by Congress that banned such activities as dams and dredging. Other backers of the GOP plan said Clinton used the act for political rather than conservation reasons. "The act has outlived its usefulness," said Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, the provision's author. Hansen said he has been told the administration was considering creating an additional 25 national monuments. "Let's put the entire West in one and call it the Western Monument." Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage, R-Idaho, said the administration "is involved in a very desperate grab of lands, the largest land grab since the invasion of Poland." Opponents of the GOP action said it was nothing more than an "end run" around the Antiquities Act and Clinton's use of it. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said Republicans shouldn't have tried to restrict the Antiquities Act with a last-minute rider on an appropriations bill. "If they don't like it, let them repeal it," Blumenauer said of the critics. Meanwhile, Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., chairman of the Senate Interior Appropriations Committee, said he would not try to revive the rider in his subcommittee's version of the bill. "My goal is to get a relatively noncontroversial bill that the president could sign," Gorton said. | |