In today’s polarized climate, it’s easy to feel skeptical when public officials make claims that don’t quite add up. But a recent statement from a member of Gov. Spencer Cox’s team printed in The Tribune was so misleading it deserves correction.
Redge Johnson, director of the Governor’s Public Land Policy Coordinating Office, told this newspaper that the state of Utah simply wants to assume management of federal lands — not sell them. He said, “There’s nobody I know in state government that wants to sell those public lands.”
We’d like to introduce Mr. Johnson to the Utah Attorney General’s office, which sued to force the privatization of public lands at Gov. Cox’s request. In court, a lawyer for the state recently told a judge that Utah’s lawsuit seeks, “not to transfer title to Utah, it was to start disposing of the land as it had done for hundreds of years.” This flatly contradicts what the governor’s top aide told this paper and clearly shows that when Utah’s leaders filed their lawsuit at the Supreme Court last year they sued to privatize public lands, not take over their management.
Whether this is confusion inside the governor’s office or an attempt to avoid public backlash is unclear. But it is worth remembering that Sen. Mike Lee’s recent legislative push to sell off millions of acres of public land across the West collapsed under broad public opposition.
Gov. Cox should take note. His team would find it a lot easier to drop this unpopular privatization push and stand with the people of Utah and all westerners to actually keep public lands in public hands.
Michael Carroll, BLM campaign director for The Wilderness Society, Durango, Colorado
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