This morning in Salt Lake City, former Secretary of the Interior and Governor of Arizona Bruce Babbitt called out Utah Governor Gary Herbert for leading the charge to seize control of federal public lands.
Speaking to a packed audience of outdoor recreation industry representatives from across the county at the Outdoor Retailers Show, Babbitt noted that “Governor Herbert has proclaimed his personal enthusiasm for casting off federal environmental regulation” and warned that “the disappearance of outdoor spaces is an existential threat to your industry.”
It’s also an existential threat to our way of life here in Utah. Like Babbitt, we “can’t imagine the West… as a landscape of locked gates, fences festooned with “NO TRESPASSING” signs, streams blocked off to fishermen, and campgrounds and hunting lands put on the auction block.”
Your voice is important. For too long, radicals like State Representative Ken Ivory have been given free reign to push their privatizing public lands agenda.
And while we’ve seen these types of attacks before, as Bruce Babbitt noted, “this time around the threat must be taken more seriously” because it “is a national effort, sponsored and produced behind-the-scenes by sophisticated lobbyists funded with torrents of cash from the oil and gas industry.
“These new players are easing resentful racist characters like Cliven Bundy off the stage. They are bringing on political pros backed by groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council, funded from industry sources and seeking to dismantle environmental regulation.”
Please, make sure your voice is heard over the industry lobbyists in Salt Lake City.
