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Lawsuit targets protected land areas New monuments anger land users From staff and wire reports WASHINGTON � Two land-use groups have filed a federal lawsuit to overturn five newly designated national monuments, including the Cascade-Siskiyou monument in Southern Oregon. The Mountain States Legal Foundation and the BlueRibbon Coalition filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., Tuesday challenging the new monuments, claiming President Clinton overstepped his authority by putting new restrictions on 1.5 million acres in Oregon, Washington, Arizona, and Colorado. The Pocatello, Idaho, based BlueRibbon Coalition, a group of off-road vehicle users and companies, is most concerned about the ban on motorized vehicles such as motorcycles in the 52,000-acre Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, said spokeswoman Adena Cook. Motorcycle riders there "now by fiat find themselves excluded from the trails they have enjoyed" for years, Cook said. "We�re concerned that it doesn�t really protect anything other than the satisfaction of grabbing headlines." But Dave Willis, chairman of the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council that backed monument status, said the president was well within his congressional-granted authority when he created the national monuments. He called the lawsuit "all show and no go." "These groups have to file lawsuits to keep their constituents happy," Willis said. "We are grateful that the president has protected these areas and it�s too bad that people are against better protections for public lands that belong to all Americans. It�s too bad that private interests even in the year 2000 want to continue to despoil the public domain." Dominick DellaSala, director of the Klamath-Siskiyou Regional Program of the World Wildlife Fund, said the lawsuit "goes against what the majority of the public wants. "It�s not surprising to me it�s being orchestrated by groups with a history of degrading public lands." The Cascade-Siskiyou monument is among 10 Clinton has designated this year on 4 million acres the government already owned. Mining, logging, oil drilling and off-road vehicle use are banned or restricted in the national monuments. "The bad thing is, the president did it unilaterally," said William Perry Pendley of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a conservative group that earlier filed a pending lawsuit challenging Clinton�s 1996 creation of a national monument in Utah. "The bottom line is, the president doesn�t have the authority to do what he�s done. Only Congress does." Spokesmen for the White House and the Interior Department said Tuesday they had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment on it. Clinton created the monuments under the 1906 Antiquities Act, which allows presidents to set aside monuments to protect areas with historic or scientific interest. He has said the monuments � which include a swath of arid canyons dotted with American Indian ruins and a spawning ground for salmon � need protection from overuse, vandalism, pollution or encroaching development. Western Republicans have criticized the monuments, calling them an election-year ploy that may please environmentalists but prevent legitimate and profitable use of the federal land. Pendley says that Clinton cannot use the act to protect features that are not historic, archaeological or scientific sites. "He has no authority to close these areas because they are pretty, because they have endangered species habitat, because they have wild and scenic rivers or because they have 800-year-old trees," Pendley said. The Ironwood Forest National Monument in Arizona includes groves of the ancient desert trees. But Pendley acknowledged that federal courts have rejected similar challenges to national monuments in the past. Besides Ironwood Forest and Cascade-Siskiyou, the monuments being challenged are Grand Canyon-Parashant in Arizona, Canyons of the Ancients in Colorado and Hanford Reach in Washington state. On the Internet: BlueRibbon Coalition: www.sharetrails.org Interior Department: www.doi.gov Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA