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Jan.
25, 2001
By Gail Binkly
Journal Managing Editor
The Canyons of the Ancients National Monument west of
Cortez will not be overturned during the Bush administration, U.S. Rep.
Scott McInnis stated Tuesday.
During a meeting in Durango with staff from the Journal
and Durango Herald, McInnis said only former President Clinton’s
roadless initiative and environmental actions he took during his last
month in office, such as a flurry of last-minute monument declarations,
will be seriously reviewed with an eye to overturning them.
The forest initiative bans road-building on existing
roadless portions of federal forests and would protect up to 60 million
acres.
"The roadless initiative is going to get a
look," McInnis said, "but I think monuments like this one and
the (Grand Staircase-) Escalante (in southern Utah) are going to stay in
place."
The 164,000-acre Canyons of the Ancients was created in
June 2000 by Clinton through a presidential proclamation under the 1906
Antiquities Act. A sizable contingent of private-property advocates in
Montezuma County has called for the designation to be overturned, saying
Clinton did not heed local sentiment or concerns.
U.S. Rep. James Hansen (R-Utah) also has called for a
review of all Clinton’s environmental actions, but McInnis said he didn’t
think that would occur.
"The Utah delegation, with the Escalante monument
(also created by presidential proclamation, in 1996) and the way they
handled it — these people are very bitter," he said. "But,
mark my words, when it’s all said and done, you’re not going to see a
reversal of these things."
However, he predicted that Gale Norton, if confirmed as
secretary of the Interior Department, would seek community consensus
before declaring future monuments.
McInnis touched on a wide variety of other topics during
his visit, including:
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Taxes and the economy. "This economy’s
right on the edge, in my opinion," McInnis said. He supports Bush’s
proposal for a $1.3 trillion tax cut, saying it would stimulate the
economy back toward health.
"This tax cut, if it’s going to make any difference, it’s got
to be big," he said. "It’s got to be significant enough
for somebody to go buy a TV or something, and it’s got to be
combined with effective management by the Federal Reserve."
McInnis is also a strong advocate of ending the "death tax,"
or inheritance tax, and plans to work on that this session. He also
said cutting the capital-gains tax is the quickest way to jump-start a
sluggish economy but that it should be retained as "the ace in
the deck."
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The California power crisis. McInnis said
"some tough love is in order" and that California’s
electric companies should be allowed complete freedom to raise their
prices. That would stimulate competition and the building of more
power plants, he said.
"The best fix is to back off your restrictions and let the price
float with the market," he said. "It will enrage people, but
it will balance off." Gov. Gray Davis also must "back off
the environmental regulations — not all, but make them more
reasonable,"he said.
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Education. McInnis said the new administration
would be looking more towards block grants to provide local control
over school systems than to an outright voucher system that would
allow students to go to any school of their choice.
Allowing the states to develop their own welfare systems has been a
"huge success," McInnis said, and he hopes the block grants
would work similarly for education.
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Redistricting. Now that Colorado is slated to
gain a new congressional seat, the existing districts must be redrawn.
McInnis said he hopes the Western Slope, which is in his district,
will remain intact because its interests and concerns are largely the
same. But he also said he would hate to see Pueblo County, another
part of the district, divided and that he did not know how the
district should be redrawn.
As a member of the important House Ways and Means Committee, McInnis
said, he is eager to get to work on issues such as Social Security,
trade, taxes and health care.
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