The name is clunky -- Antiquities Act of 1906 -- but it has saved the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park and other incomparable natural sites for all Americans to enjoy. The act was used first by President Teddy Roosevelt to preserve Devil's Tower, an otherworldly rock formation in Wyoming that later became the alien landing site in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Roosevelt and 14 succeeding presidents have invoked the act more than 100 times to protect significant tracts of public land ranging from 10-million acres in Alaska's Yukon to the Statue of Liberty. President Bill Clinton was particularly active, creating 10 new monuments in the West that contain ancient ruins, giant sequoia trees and spectacular landscapes. While popular with most Americans, Clinton's actions angered conservative Republicans and the extractive industries (logging, mining and drilling).

Attacks on the Antiquities Act are many. Timber companies sued to overturn the Sequoia National Monument in California, which contains 34 of the remaining 70 groves of giant sequoias. County officials in Utah are suing over the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Interior Secretary Gale Norton put the designation of Oregon's Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument on hold after a request by a Republican congressman, even though residents living near the monument favor it.

Now, U.S. Rep. Michael Simpson, R-Idaho, has filed a bill (HR 2114) that would allow Congress to usurp the president's authority under the act. In Simpson's rewrite, a presidential designation of a monument would "cease to be effective" within two years unless Congress passed a law approving it.

It isn't the first time Congress has tried to undermine the Antiquities Act, but this is a cowardly approach. Congress already has the power to overturn or amend a presidential decision on monuments. And it has done so, limiting monument designations in Wyoming and Alaska. But that has to take place in the public eye. Under Simpson's bill, Congress could quietly let a monument lose its protection without taking any responsibility for the action.

Critics of the act have failed to come up with a good reason to change it. They say the Clinton administration failed to seek public input before making its decisions. That's not true. Before creating the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, for example, Clinton Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said he met with "ranchers, off-road vehicle users, county commissioners, timber industry representatives, environmentalists -- every group I could find who had an interest in the land." The issue was widely debated, and the editorial pages of Oregon's two largest newspapers favored the monument.

It is true that one monument, Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, did not have wide local support. The land is described by the Bureau of Land Management as "strikingly beautiful and scientifically important" and "a masterpiece of geological and biological diversity," but local officials seem more interested in its coal deposits.

That is why the Antiquities Act was created. A president should be able to rise above local, vested interests that would exploit irreplaceable land. After all, the monuments are owned by all Americans, who have a right to preserve their natural treasures.

The Antiquities Act has survived 95 years and is responsible for some of America's most cherished places. Interior Secretary Norton should uphold the law, and Congress should tell Rep. Simpson his bill is not welcome.

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