This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
As a Republican, I am proud of my GOP's heritage of conservation and disappointed by its recent performance. The GOP from its very beginning with our first president, Abraham Lincoln, through the early '70s with President Richard Nixon, took the lead in environmental and conservation issues.
Lincoln's work with Yosemite, followed by Ulysses S. Grant's establishment of Yellowstone as our first national park, got the GOP started as a conservation powerhouse. President Theodore Roosevelt amplified these efforts, becoming the president most identified with conservation. Nixon and other important Republican members of Congress in the late '60s and early '70s are are the most recent, but often overlooked, champions of environmental protection, establishing the EPA, ESA, Clean Water/Air Acts and more.
I am calling on our Republican leaders to take back our GOP heritage of leadership on conservation issues.
A great first step would be for our congressional delegation to declare that President Barack Obama's declaration of Bears Ears National Monument, at 1.3 million acres, to have been a weak compromise. Then demand that its borders be expanded to the original 1.9 million acres or more to begin to re-establish the GOP as the conservation leader.
Philip Carlson
Salt Lake City