Bear
Essentials February 5-12, 2017
--Twitter?
Anyone
who is engaged in the battle and uses twitter, please use your skills and know how
to educate the New Sec. Of Interior Ryan Zinke.
He can be a real ally and needs to be treated and tweeted well. https://twitter.com/hashtag/bearsears?src=rela
--Our
State Representatives were Great Spokesmen for rural Utah. See the Utah House of Representatives in
Action.
1-
House
Concurrent Resolution 11 Representative/ Speaker of the House Greg
Hughes discusses Concerns about Bears Ears, and the need to repeal the
designation.
--ARRA
Newsletter: National
Monuments
It looks like the Utah congressional
delegation is not about to leave unchallenged former President Obama’s decision
to create the Bears Ears National Monument. Various members of the
delegation have spoken personally to President Trump and to Secretary-designate
Zinke about the need to overturn this declaration. Although there are
some legal questions as to whether a president can rescind a monument
designation of a former president, there is precedent for adjusting the
boundaries of National Monuments. Secretary-designate Zinke has promised
that one of the first orders of business as Secretary will be to go to Utah and
talk directly to the people affected by this particular monument
designation. Perhaps some sort of change for Bears Ears National Monument
is more than just a pipedream.
The Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee has removed National Monument designations from the
jurisdiction of its National Parks Subcommittee and made it a subject matter
for the full committee. Some might consider this move as a minor matter,
but we see it as something more. Chairman Lisa Murkowski‘s(R-Alaska) decision
to kick this issue to the full committee is one way to streamline the process
for rewriting of the Antiquities Act. We see this as a hopeful sign.
“Under
the Obama Administration, lands in Wyoming and all across the west were the
target of aggressive federal regulations that were devastating to our jobs, our
land, and our way of life,” said U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney in a statement Monday.”
Bad
News Bears
--“The agent also is accused of bragging that he “owned” the national
director of BLM’s Office of Law Enforcement and Security and that nothing would
happen to him.
According to the report, Love told the woman she better do damage
control after the investigation began in 2015. Once he was removed from his
position, she said he told her: “You know, if you don’t side with me, grenades
are going to go off and you’ll get hit.”
Good
News Bears – give Phil a Bear Hug!
“As the
details emerge of the new Monument, it is clear that scheming special interest
groups have been crafting the details of this Monument for years. These special
interest groups, who derided the County Commissioners over their concerns about
such basic things as roads, hunting, and wood gathering, are now feverishly
filing law suits and gathering petitions to coerce the BLM into closing roads,
limiting access, and keeping people away from this area.
I have learned since becoming an elected
County Commissioner that schemers are always ten steps ahead of people of good
will. Those of us who love this place enough to sacrifice for it, to care for
it, to call it home; those for whom this land is not a playground but our very
soul, we are troubled by decisions made in Washington D.C. without the benefit
of knowledge but rather the misinformation of maligning, accusing,
agenda-driven organizations who have found a welcome mat at the White House for
the past twenty-eight years. Buying influence and, with mob rule, circumventing
the representative form of government that is the foundation of this Republic,
these groups have bullied their way into becoming a quasi-administration.” Quotes from Commissioner Lyman
Bearing Bad Omens
“There
is an irony in all this. “New Westerners” rail against the “redneck” mentality
that used to govern the rural west before we came along to save it. But at the
same time, many also long for the West the way it was 50 years ago, when the
‘rednecks’ were running the show.
New
Westerners come to live here as permanent tourists. They’ve come to be closer
to the beauty they have admired for so long and rail against those who extract
natural resources from it. But at the same time, they have no problem consuming
those resources. They oppose oil/gas production but heat their new homes and
power their hybrid SUVs and urge many more of their stripe to join them. They
condemn timber extraction but build new 4000 square foot McMansions in the arid
deserts and forests of the West. They oppose new dams and water pipelines but
xeriscape their lawns and think that makes them good conservationists. And
then they condemn the old timers for not being progressive enough.
As
the West becomes less of what it was, what really made the difference?
Us, en
masse. Millions of us. We came here to save The West and subsequently
ruined it with our sheer numbers and our desire to bring our urban habits with
us. I doubt you could get a double-decaf, skinny cappuccino 40 years ago, but
who’d be willing to trade it for some real peace and quiet? In today’s rush to
be part of The New West, I’m not sure anybody cares.” Conclusion by Jim. Be sure to read the rest and be forewarned.
=========
This is why county residents must confront the
lies being generated, and the fear mongering.
We need to be engaged in this cause and continue to speak up. Our next arena is Washington DC where Utah’s
Resolutions will be presented. Find
kindred friends in other states who can speak to their representatives and
senators in support of these bills.
Thank you for all you have done, and will do. JW
