This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee claim the Antiquities Act is abused by our president as a federal land grab. They claim it was only meant to protect small landmarks. It's these times I wish I could call in the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt so he could take these Utah Republicans by their collective collars and set them straight. President Roosevelt, a Republican, used his presidential power to preserve the Grand Canyon and 19 other natural landmarks with the act, and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the president has the discretion to decide the size and nature of the area to be protected. This is indisputable fact.
When Hatch and Lee pick a fight with our federal government, our federal public lands and our public access to these lands, it's a diversion from what they should really be doing in Utah, such as fighting for clean air, clean water, solving our homeless problems, protecting our health care and not just protecting the rights of the elite and moneyed members of the oil, gas and extraction industries. The one percent who want to lock up and exploit our public lands for their personal power. Case in point: the new buyers of the state parcel in Bluff now blocking years of public access to Comb Wash with a no trespassing sign and a locked gate.
Growing up in Wyoming I watched as the billionaires came to Jackson and those millionaires then moving to Cody. The first thing that happened is we lost our traditional ability to access streams, and Forest Service/BLM lands. With Hatch, Lee and Rep. Rob Bishop continually trying to defund the federal budgets for the Forest Service, the BLM and National Parks/Interior Department, they can try and claim the federal government does a poor job of land management. In fact, it's these same anti-public access Republicans who are trying to destroy what Americans and people from all over the world come here to see and call America's greatest idea.
Lance Holter
Salt Lake City