This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Utah attorney general's office says it will not investigate activism for or against the proposed designation of a national monument at Bears Ears.
In April, Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, requested that the state's Constitutional Defense Council and Attorney General Sean Reyes investigate and "ferret out" environmentalists' ties to groups that favored a national monument in San Juan County.
Because there have been no specific allegations of misconduct, spokesman Dan Burton said it would be against the policy of the attorney general's office to open an investigation on the matter.
The office only investigates cases that contain "a specific allegation of misconduct," according to its website, and the office would not "influence or interfere with public policy debate, no matter the parties involved or the import of the questions at issue."
"Using such powers to resolve a public policy debate undermines the trust invested in our office and threatens free speech," the website says.
Utah Congressmen Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz hoped to prevent the creation of Bears Ears National Monument as they unveiled Thursday a long-awaited package of bills — the Public Lands Initiative.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, who visited the site of the proposed monument in San Juan County on Thursday, was met with shouts from those opposed to the idea of a monument. Though she hadn't read the most recent initiative proposal, Jewell noted "significant problems" in an earlier draft.
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