by Janelle Holden
Journal Staff Writer

Unilaterally designating 164,000 acres as the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument may have been an easy stroke of the pen for President Clinton, but persuading Congress to fully fund the proclamation could take the Interior Department several years.

On Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the fiscal 2001 Interior appropriations bill without allocating any portion of the $14.6 billion measure for new national monuments.

The Bureau of Land Management had recommended an additional $16 million in funding for the management of three new national monuments in Arizona and California that were designated in February, but that recommendation was denied.

Over the objections of many Republicans and local businesses, Clinton has designated eight new national monuments and expanded an existing one since January. The new monuments cover nearly 2 million in acres in Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington state.

"This president is engaging in the biggest land grab since the invasion of Poland," said Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage, R-Idaho.

Despite Republican efforts, legislation to prohibit the Interior Department from "design, planning or management" of any national monuments designated since the beginning of this year was defeated by a vote of 234-187 on Thursday.

U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Grand Junction, was the only Colorado Republican to vote against the measure. McInnis, whose district includes Cortez and the new monument, has said he fully supports funding the monument.

The Senate has yet to approve its version of the Interior appropriations bill for the fiscal year 2001. James Doyle, a spokesman for Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.), who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Campbell would not support any additional funding for this or other national monuments.

"We don’t have the funding mechanisms in place to properly support our current national parks and monuments," said Doyle.

Larry Benna, an official with the BLM’s budgetary office, said that the BLM is currently in the process of gathering information on the estimated management costs for Canyons of the Ancients. It plans to recommend that Congress set aside additional funding for the monument for fiscal year 2002, but the BLM has very little money for the monument until then.

"We’ve asked our Colorado state offices to tell us what their immediate needs are, and then we can make some adjustments in available funding," said Benna.

County officials are worried that local taxpayers may have to pick up the tab instead of the federal government if the monument draws a large amount of tourists.

"Blocking funding really does nothing but hurt communities that are already being impacted by the creation of these monuments," said Mike Preston, Coordinator of the Montezuma County Federal Lands Program. "It doesn’t really seem right to us to punish the communities that are kind of saddled with having to deal with the new monument."

The Montezuma County Commissioners recently sent letters to their congressional delegation asking for funding to help the community pay for an expected increase in emergency services, road impacts, fire protection, and law enforcement.

Funding for the monument may be available in 2001 if the Interior appropriations bill is amended in the Senate or in negotiations between the House and the Senate.

The Clinton administration has threatened to veto the bill if its desired funding is not included.

Until then, regional BLM officials said they will have to manage within their current budgetary restrictions.

Currently, the BLM has allocated nearly $1 million for the region, and expects that level of funding to continue into next year. The budget for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, which became a national monument in 1998, jumped from $2 million to $6.4 million in the past two years.

Mark Stiles, the Southwest BLM manager in Montrose, said Friday that the Federal Advisory Committe Act prohibits the monument’s advisory committee from making specific budget requests.

Stiles said that the monument will first need funding to provide public information, and then officials hope to start working on stewardship of archaeological resources. For now, the Anasazi Heritage Center is handling visitors’ requests for information.