Washington Interior Secretary Ken Salazar appeared before Congress again Tuesday to testify on his department's budget request only to face another question about whether President Barack Obama was angling to designate any new national monuments in the West.
It has been nearly three weeks since Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, released a memo he says showed the Obama administration may have plans to use a century-old law to unilaterally convert federal lands (including two potential sites in Utah) to national monuments - a claim that has brought repeated denials from Salazar.
That may be exactly what Western lawmakers wanted: high-profile denials.
"The fact that they said they will not do anything yet and they will confer with local governments, that's a major change, and that's a plus," Bishop said Tuesday. "So, yeah, I think outing them kind of helped out here. I would take that not necessarily as a win, but at least it's something that moves forward the public process."
Salazar and his spokeswoman, Kendra Barkoff, repeatedly have said that the document Bishop released - identifying 14 potential Western monuments, including Utah's Cedar Mesa and San Rafael Swell - simply was the result of brainstorming and no action was forthcoming.
Now, even if the Obama administration wanted to name a national monument, it would have a hard time doing so using the 1906 Antiquities Act unless it gained the backing of local officials.
Barkoff reiterated Tuesday that Salazar has been consistent since his Senate confirmation and beforehand that he wants to gather public support before moving forward on any public-land changes.
"The secretary has always felt that conservation needs to come from the ground up with local support and input and congressional support and input," Barkoff said, noting that Salazar has praised the Washington County lands bill passed by Congress and signed by Obama last year after winning support from environmentalists and local officials. "That's how [Salazar] believes it should happen."
