PRESIDENT Clinton will earn the gratitude of millions of tourists to Utah's spectacular canyon country when he rescues it from being turned into an ugly coal mine by a stroke of the pen.
The announcement is expected today as Mr Clinton stands near the spot where President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 declared the Grand Canyon a national monument. He was also saving it from the mining interests of the day who had rights to most of it.
The villain this time is a Dutch owned mining company, Andalex Resources, which has been planning to exploit a seven billion ton coal deposit in the centre of a strikingly beautiful area called the Canyons of the Escalante.
The company says it will fight the presidential order. Andalex claims it would mine in an environmentally sound way and employ 900 workers.
Also up in arms are Utah's Republican congressmen who say the President's action is an election gimmick. The state is the most Republican in the US and in 1992 Mr Clinton finished third there behind Mr Ross Perot.
Senator Orrin Hatch has told the Interior Secretary, Mr Bruce Babbit, that if the area is turned into a national monument "there will be hell to pay".
Another Utah Republican congressman, Mr James Hansen, is quoted in the New York Times as saying. "If this goes through, I will go to the House and blast Clinton every night before national television cameras. I want people to see the biggest land grab in history."
But for Mr Clinton, the move to save the canyons from coal mining is likely to be popular with most Americans. Polls have shown this to be so and Mr Clinton is very influenced by polls. Last month he made an order to prevent gold mining in a scenic area of the Rockies.
Another Republican senator from Utah, Mr Robert Bennett, says. "This will be a magnificent photo opportunity with President Clinton standing in front of the most majestic scenery in the world to declare that he has protected Utah from the plunderers. It will help Clinton in the polls, in the west as elsewhere, but it is an outrageous way to make public policy.
Environmentalists who were critical of Mr Clinton's decision last year to open up some untouched national forests to logging are delighted with the measure to protect the Utah canyons. They see it as a "bold, visionary step".
Other presidents have also designated areas of natural beauty as national monuments or recreational parks using the Antiquities Act of 1906 without the need of congressional approval. President Carter used the Act to protect large areas of Alaska.
Meanwhile, the Interior Secretary, Mr Babbit, has announced a wildlife conservation campaign which would require a tax on birdseed, binoculars and hiking boots. The tax would raise money from bird watchers and other outdoor lovers who are not liable for fishing and hunting taxes.