This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

At least Sen. Mike Lee was honorable enough not to try to claim credit for one of the last and best accomplishments of the statesman he ousted from office two years ago.

No, rather than celebrate the opening of two new federal conservation areas in Utah's Washington County Monday, the Republican senator was back in Washington, D.C., rudely denigrating the carefully crafted Washington County Lands Bill of 2009 that made them possible.

Lee, joined by Sen. Orrin Hatch, has proposed a bill that would not allow the federal government to apply national park, monument or recreation/conservation area status — on land that the federal government owns — without the approval of the affected state's legislature.

In some states, that might not be a problem. In others — particularly Utah — the overwhelming influence the extractive industries have over state legislative bodies would make it nearly impossible to grant proper levels of federal protection to another acre of land. Which is, clearly, the point.

The bill is not only a bad idea, it amounts to a gratuitous slap at former U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett. It was Republican Bennett, along with Democrat Rep. Jim Matheson, who painstakingly worked out the bill that increased levels of federal protection for some lands while allowing other parcels near cities to be sold for development. It is a success that other Utah counties are seeking to copy.

It was a long slog that required give and take from Republicans and Democrats, environmentalists and developers, local officials and federal office-holders. Bringing state politicians into the mix, especially when the state officials who would be involved would be those most eager to pave, build and drill everything, would have complicated the works to the point of impossibility.

But, in an age when compromise and consensus are perceived as signs of weakness, Bennett's reward was to be ousted from office at the 2010 Utah Republican State Convention.

Among Mike Lee's tea-party-inspired notions is the idea that the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, the one that took the power to name U.S. senators away from state legislatures and gave it directly to the people, was a mistake.

Lee may or may not be aware that the primary motivation for that amendment was the widespread, and barely concealed, practice of rich men, often made rich by mining or drilling, bidding on Senate seats by effectively buying off state lawmakers.

Lee, apparently, sees such an age as the good old days. Most of the rest of us do not.