President Clinton's efforts to extend more protection to some of California's federal lands is not ending with his interest in the Pinnacles National Monument and the thousands of rocks and small islands that dot the coastline.
The administration also continues to eye a couple of other areas: the sweeping grasslands of the Carrizo Plain in eastern San Luis Obispo County and the steep mountains rising above Palm Springs.
"They are very different and equally compelling places," Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said in an interview.
The Central Coast plan faces no apparent opposition, but the Palm Springs proposal is raising some questions from local officials and developers.
Last week, Babbitt asked Clinton to add about 8,000 acres to the Pinnacles monument south of San Jose, create two new monuments on federal land in Arizona and give monument status to the many federally owned islands and rocks within 12 miles of the California coastline.
Clinton signaled that he is willing to do that next year, using his executive authority.
In the case of the Carrizo Plain and the Santa Rosa-San Jacinto mountains above Palm Springs, Babbitt said the administration hopes that Congress, rather than the president, will take the necessary action.
U.S. Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) has a House bill pending to add protections to the 250,000-acre Carrizo Plain and Rep. Mary Bono (R-Palm Springs) intends to introduce legislation early next year to create a Santa Rosa monument.
But Palm Springs officials are raising their eyebrows at the notion of a monument in their backyard, and some residents are flatly opposed to it.
"The biggest question the council has is why, really why?" said Palm Springs Mayor William G. Kleindienst. "We have a long-standing history in Palm Springs of safeguarding our mountains."
Although the city remains officially neutral on the monument proposal, Kleindienst expressed concern that the designation would stop proposed developments on private land near and within the monument.
The monument boundaries, as roughly outlined, would encompass 280,000 acres in the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa ranges, 55,000 acres of which are private. The rest is a patchwork belonging to the federal Bureau of Land Management, the National Forest Service, the state and the Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians.
