John Hansen: “the 1-year limit for Congress that the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Vento] has come up with, to finalize the monument…”

“the 1-year limit for Congress that the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Vento] has come up with, to finalize the monument designation as the Vento amendment would enact, simply does not allow enough time for Congress to act to the Presidential proclamation. In fact, it takes way the power that this bill provides to Congress in order to pass the proposed designation. Mr. Chairman, I would ask my colleagues to keep in mind, a case in point would be the most recent Presidential abuse of the Antiquities Act designating 1.7 million acres of mostly sagebrush and pinyon juniper in southern Utah as a national monument. Mr. Chairman, it is well over a year since the purely political monument was established, yet there continues to be frequent congressional discussion of this blatant and insulting abuse of Presidential power designated as a national monument proclamation, so this amendment really does nothing. Mr. Chairman, I find it interesting when I hear some say this is only Federal lands and we all own it. That is not what the antiquities law says. Let us go to the law when all else fails. It says 'on lands owned or controlled by.' Well, they control everything, if we want to take the extreme interpretation of it. In fact, in this 1.7 million acres there are 200,000 acres that belonged to the schoolchildren of Utah. There are countless pieces of private ground that are encompassed.”