Calling the demise of his national-conservation-area bill a lost opportunity, Rep. Scott McInnis on Wednesday said the legislation’s foes were mistaken if they thought they wouldn’t wind up with a national monument instead.

"I think it’s a mistake to call [Interior Secretary Bruce] Babbitt’s bluff because I don’t think he’s bluffing," McInnis said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C.

"If he’s not, in my opinion we’re going to end up in a lot worse shape than if we’d been able to pass the bill, which was the result of local input."

McInnis had sponsored a companion bill to legislation introduced by Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell that would have created the Canyon of the Ancients National Conservation Area on 164,000 acres in Montezuma and Dolores counties.

The legislation was prompted by statements from Babbitt in which he made it clear he wanted more protection for the area’s numerous Ancestral Puebloan ruins through some new federal designation.

But Campbell recently dropped his bill, citing local opposition, and on Monday Babbitt told the Montezuma County commissioners by phone that he is now about to ask President Clinton to declare a monument under the 1906 Antiquities Act.

If Babbitt does proceed with the monument declaration, it will probably be more restrictive than the NCA would have been, McInnis said — even though Babbitt told the commissioners the monument would be very similar to the conservation area.

"I think you’re going to see severe restrictions on recreation, on the energy resource, on motorized use," McInnis said. "I think generally it will look like what Senator Campbell and I proposed, but in the fine print we’re going to get it handed to us on a platter."

McInnis said a monument designation also allows the secretary to write the water language rather than having it written by legislators.

"In Colorado our life is written in water," he said. "Letting Babbitt write this gives him 100 percent flexibility. Doing what Senator Campbell proposed was what I felt was in the best interest of multiple use."

McInnis said he does not believe Babbitt is "intimidated one bit by local opposition" and that he and Clinton will "do what they darn well want to, which is unfortunate because we in Colorado deserve more than what we often end up with."

"That legislation was our opportunity," McInnis said, noting that the bill had been supported by the county commissioners, the local Farm Bureau, and several other local groups. "In it we protected that multiple use. But some have chosen to say they’d rather sue Babbitt or call Babbitt’s bluff. I think it’s a mistake."

He said he believed Campbell’s perception was that he "jumped out of a foxhole and looked behind him and nobody else had jumped out of their foxhole."

Among the most vocal opponents of the legislation were members of the Southwest Colorado Landowners Association, who argued that they’d rather take their chances and see if Clinton would declare a national monument. If he did, they maintained, it could be overturned by Congress or through the courts.

McInnis said the chances of either happening were remote.

"Politically, you are not going to undo a national monument," he said. "That’s just the political reality.

"Remember, we have very few votes in the West," he said. "In the East they have no federal land. There’s no consequences [for new land designations]. They don’t feel any pain. They would be appalled at any president who would do away with a wilderness area or national monument, short of a national emergency.

"It isn’t going to happen. It’s almost an injustice for people to sell people on this strategy by saying we’ll be able to get rid of a national monument in this country."

A few national monuments have been overturned in the nation’s history, McInnis noted, but usually just to replace them with something more restrictive. For instance, Holy Cross in Colorado was once a monument and is now a wilderness area.

Some bills have been introduced to rein in the president’s powers under the Antiquities Act, which allows him to declare national monuments unilaterally, but McInnis said such legislation isn’t going anywhere.

"You’ve got to have the votes," he said. "I support it but they’re not going to deliver 218 votes [in the House of Representitives], and if they somehow got those votes, the president is just going to veto it."

Opponents of the NCA bill likewise said they might be able to delay a monument designation until after Clinton left office, but McInnis said he didn’t see how.

"I think anybody out there that’s talking about legislation to delay it, or litigation [to fight it], they have an affirmative obligation to provide the details.

"If it’s a lawsuit, who’s going to pay for it? What are the chances? History shows the chances are minimal at best and the costs are unbelievable.

"On delay, how are they going to delay, aside from calling the president and saying, ‘Will you please not consider this while you’re in office?’"

He said, while he can’t speak for Campbell, he believes the senator will continue to lobby for the monument to be as protective of historic multiple uses as possible.

"We’re going to continue to communicate with Babbitt, and if he’s going to do this we intend to be very intense about the protections of multiple use and the concerns of the locals."

McInnis said he understands why many area residents opposed his bill, but said that they were somewhat misled about the chances of successfully fending off a national monument designation.