Question:
NET Reporter Marianne Lombardi: Southern Utah is known for its
vast lands and beautiful canyons. With majestic colors and deafening
silence, on site, it is simply overwhelming. It may also be the
setting of the greatest international sell out of our time. On
September 18th, six weeks before the 1996 Presidential election, Bill
Clinton declared 1 million 700 thousand acres of Utah land a national
monument by Executive Order. Within what is now called the Grand
Staircase Escalante National Monument are billions of barrels of oil,
minerals, and most importantly, the highest quality coal to be found
anywhere in the world.
President Clinton: "... I am concerned about a large coal mine
proposed for the area. Mining jobs are good jobs and mining is
important to our national economy and to our national security. But we
can't have mines everywhere and we shouldn't have mines that threaten
our national treasures."
Answer:
1. coal mining, as a source of revenue and power for Utah, is
virtually shut down;
2. jobs that would have been available to Southern Utah in the
mining field no longer exist;
3. $20 billion in federal revenue from mining Utah coal will
never be realized; and
4. school trusts set up to fund Utah's public education will
forever be locked up in the monument
President Clinton: "I will say again - creating this national
monument should not and will not come at the expense of Utah's
children."
Lombardi: Despite his promise, President Clinton's action will
have a direct and negative impact on Utah's children. Land specially
set aside to fund schools, through revenue that would have come from
mining Utah's natural resources, is now locked up in the Escalante
National Monument.
Liston: "When Utah became a state, under the enabling Act,
when they became a state, the government allowed them four sections
out of every township so that when they have all these federal lands,
that school kids would not be left without some way of funding the
schools. So they allowed those four sections out of every township to
be trust lands."
Lombardi: President Clinton has promised to trade the school
trust land within the monument with comparable land in other parts of
Utah. Dr. Lee Allison, who heads up the project tasked with finding
that land, is skeptical.
Allison: "We can't find enough coal, in Utah, to compensate
for the school trusts, and if we start adding oil and gas fields,
other mineral deposits, we still have a tough time finding enough
federal resources in the entire state of Utah to trade for just the
school children's coal within the monument, let alone their other
resources."
Lombardi: Another loser in the creation of the monument are
the American coal companies such as Andalex Resources which had a
license to mine coal in the Kaiparowitz plateau. After years of
researching how to develop an environmentally friendly mining plan,
Andalex's plans have been halted due to the signing of President
Clinton's executive order.
