Romney, Stewart, Bishop back Utah group pushing for local control over public lands

Mitt Romney and U.S. Reps Chris Stewart and Rob Bishop talked tough on public lands during a visit to St. George on Tuesday.

The three Republicans, all of whom are running for election this year, discussed weakening the Antiquities Act and Endangered Species Act, dropping the filibuster rule in the U.S. Senate and rewriting federal public lands policy to require state approval of new regulations. The push for such Utah-style policy proposals — taking advantage of a Republican Congress and the willingness of President Donald Trump's administration to go along with those plans — drew mostly applause from the small audience gathered at Dixie State University for the conference of a conservative advocacy group called the Foundation for Integrated Resource Management.

Touting Trump

"This president has been willing to do things no other president would be willing to do," Stewart said, crediting Trump for his recent decision to shrink the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments and acknowledging that the Republican he had originally supported for president, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, probably would not have taken so major a step.

Stewart, who is running for re-election in Utah's 2nd Congressional District, used a golf analogy to describe Trump as being unconventionally successful, saying he has "an ugly swing" that distracts the media and many political observers.

"They're all laughing at his swing, but the goal goes down the center of the fairway and it's 270 yards down there," Stewart said.

Push to make public lands a priority

Romney talked about the need to build political capital with members of Congress who live east of the Rockies, saying they tend to be unfamiliar with public-land issues and the way Western states like Utah are affected.

The former Massachusetts governor and one-time GOP presidential nominee, who is among nearly two dozen candidates vying to replace the retiring U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, said he thinks like-minded Westerners need to work cooperatively to raise public lands issues as a priority.

"It's going to take an educational effort, not just a political effort" to push back against what he called radical environmental groups, he added, referencing decisions such as Trump's national monuments order, which has been challenged in court by Native American groups, environmental groups and others.

“There are some in the environmental lawsuit industry that may not care very much about the underlying facts," he said. "They’re just going to file lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit because that’s how they get paid."

Struggling with those who don't get it

Bishop, the incumbent in Utah's 1st District, chairs the House Natural Resources Committee. He has sponsored various bills over the years to limit federal decision-making on public lands, but said he has struggled to win over some lawmakers who, he argued, don't understand the impact public lands have in the West.

"It's not that lawmakers in the East — and for me that's everything east of Denver — it's not that they're evil, they're just stupid," he said, drawing chuckles from some in the audience. "When we talk about public lands to Easterners, they just don't have the same concept. They think everything is Yellowstone."

Group plans policy institute

All three politicians were supportive of FIRM and its new proposal to develop a policy research center called the Rural Policy & Public Lands Institute.

Johnnie Miller, FIRM's executive director, said the institute would partner with FIRM to conduct public-land policy research at Utah universities, providing academic backing to policy decisions that hasn't before available before.

No specific research agreements have been announced, but Miller said institutions like Dixie State University and Utah State University have expressed interest in participating.

FIRM, which has received financial backing from the Utah Legislature, was formed in late 2016, advocating more local control in public lands issues across Utah.

The group was a prominent critic of President Barack Obama's designation of the Bears Ears National Monument and has been actively working against various federal regulations on public lands to allow greater access.

Follow David DeMille on Twitter, @SpectrumDeMille.