Utah Gov. Hickenlooper issued a statement on the Interior Department’s decision to roll back the size of Bears Ears National Monument in his state.
“Preserving and expanding our national monuments is keeping in the best traditions of our country. In Colorado, we value our lands because they are part of our fabric and they strengthen local economies. We hope our leaders can find a way to let monuments remain and return their focus to more pressing issues facing our country.”
Bear Ears was actually opposed by those affected — residents, native Americans, local officials — in Utah where the monument is located.
We’re pretty certain Hick knows the monument is not in his own state or his to govern. We’re at a loss to explain why he is meddling in another state’s affairs, especially since it was outside meddling that prompted the abuse of the national monument system in the first place, as the Independence Institute reminds us:
In October 2014, a group of people sat around a table and discussed their campaign to bring a monument designation to southeast Utah for the region they called Bears Ears.
This wasn’t a group of Native American tribal leaders from the Four Corners, but board members from an increasingly successful conservation organization who met in San Francisco to discuss, among other things, if it was wise to “hitch our success to the Navajo.”
The trail of “supporters” led to millions of dollars from outside environmental groups, Leonardo DiCaprio and Climate Criers.
There’s been enough meddling in Utah’s back yard. Hickenlooper would do well to stay out of it, just as we would prefer that other states stay out of Colorado’s business.