From the January 2001 Idaho Observer:

Last minute federal land flurry continues under cover of presidential election chaos

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Since becoming president Clinton has created 11 new national monuments and has expanded two more. By the time he leaves office, he will likely have created six more while the nation is preoccupied with transition politics. Two of them will be in Montana; Pompey's Pillar east of Billings and the Missouri Breaks region in the north-central part of the state.

The proposal would surrender nearly 400,000 acres of pristine Montana land to federal authority.

Meanwhile, Montana Governor Marc Racicot is being considered for a nomination to a cabinet post in the Bush administration.

Another national monument is proposed for the 2.7 million acre expanse of mountains, rivers and desert in south-central Idaho known as the Owyhee-Bruneau Canyonlands. Environmentalists are lobbying the Clinton administration to declare the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge a national monument in Alaska. The nomination is seen as a move to prevent president-elect GW from allowing oil drilling operations to commence on the refuge.

Other possible monuments include: A half-million acre tract in Arizona that would become the Sonoran Desert National Monument; 5,300 acres of cone-shaped rock formations would become Tent Rocks National Monument; and the 622,000 acre Jack Morrow Hills region in the deserts of Wyoming.