Little opposition to Utah land grab. (Insider Report).

Just before the 1996 presidential election, then-president Bill Clinton designated 1.7 million acres of southern Utah as a national monument, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Effectively closing off the area for mining, the act was protested by Utahns, including Utah Governor Mike Leavitt, as a cynical last-minute political ploy pandering to the environmentalist vote while punishing a state that would vote against Clinton no matter what.

How times have changed! On January 28th, Governor Mike Leavitt announced a plan to have President Bush declare another huge swath of territory in southern Utah, the 620,000-acre San Rafael Swell near Green River, as a national monument.

Governor Leavitt explained that "the Grand Staircase Monument was created by a different president who developed his executive order in complete secrecy, with no notice and no collaboration." This time around, according to Leavitt, the locals approve, and the Bush administration, unlike its baneful predecessor, will be open and fair with Utah in this latest federal land grab.

At a time when President Bush's popularity has reached Olympian heights, Governor Leavitt's action is a reminder of the pitfalls of party politics. Many Republicans and conservatives should notice how little the Bush administration differs from its predecessor in many policy areas, including the environment. But they instead give President Bush kudos for pushing policies and programs indistinguishable in substance from President Clinton's. President Bush, goes the rationale, is a nicer guy, and therefore can be trusted. But for Utah residents, the long-term outcome of a Bush land grab, backed by the governor, is unlikely to differ much from that of a Clinton land grab opposed by the governor: vast areas of land locked up from economic development, patrolled by federal officials, and off-limits to many forms of recreational activity.