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Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, vowed Tuesday to fight the federal government over public lands, seek a fix to immigration, work for states' rights and jokingly volunteered to become new ambassador to China.
"I'm here to announce my candidacy for ambassador to China. Somebody's got to do it," he said to laughs in the Utah Senate after former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. announced the previous day his plans to retire from the post.
As chairman of a U.S. House subcommittee that oversees public lands, Bishop vowed to fight Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's move for greater wilderness protection on many public lands in Utah. "There will be some push-back from my committee; I assure you that."
"We [in Congress] are the ones who create those designations, not some bureaucracy," he added. "I'm not going to abrogate those powers to some bureaucracy."
In a separate speech before the Utah House, Bishop said the lands designations hinder resource development, and until the state gets access to those areas, it won't be able to adequately fund its schools.
Bishop also said Congress should avoid a comprehensive immigration-reform bill and instead pass some easy-to-solve issues quickly before moving to tougher ones.
"First is border security," he said.
Bishop said border security is hampered because most of the Arizona-Mexico line has some sort of environmental protection that restricts access. Bishop said he supports giving U.S. personnel the authority to do what is needed on those lands to secure the border.
He said that working on visa quotas and similar problems should follow afterward.
Bishop also pledged to fight for states' rights and said he plans to seek a constitutional amendment that would allow two-thirds of states to force Congress to reconsider any law that they dislike. A resolution calling for a Constitutional Convention to adopt that amendment is pending in the Utah Legislature.
"It's a chance for states to say something is wrong here. Do it over," said Bishop, who also urged the Legislature to pass the measure in support of that amendment.
Bishop, a former Utah House speaker, praised the state's new House speaker, Becky Lockhart, R-Provo.
"I have a sneaking suspicion [Utah's] first female speaker might be more successful than our first female [U.S. House] speaker," he said, referring to former Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Robert Gehrke contributed to this report.