Office of the Secretary

For Release: April 2, 1998

Contact: John Wright 202/208-6416

STATEMENT

Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt released the following comment

concerning the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming

recent decision involving Devil’s Tower National Monument

In a decision handed down today, the Federal District Court in Wyoming rejected a challenge made by a local multiple use group, some recreational climbers and commercial climbing guide, to the National Park’s climbing management plan for Devil’s Tower National Monument. The plan was designed to accommodate climbing activities to the Tower’s cultural and religious significance to Native Americans.

“I am pleased that the court has upheld our plan and our policy of asking rock climbers to voluntarily refrain from climbing on Devil's Tower during the culturally significant month of June. I am also pleased that the court turned away challenges to the Park Services’s cultural interpretive program, which explains to Tower visitors the religious and cultural significance of the monument to some Native Americans.”

The court recognized that the Park Service had, in the Judge’s words, “carefully crafted” its policy to “balance the competing needs of individuals using Devil’s Tower National Monument” with the constitutional limitation regarding establishment of religion.

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