We are fortunate to live in a state with so much natural beauty, all within a few hours’ drive. Utah has some of the most beautiful public lands in the world. People come from all over to hike and enjoy these landscapes. These places are our national treasures.

Yet, when it comes to protecting these treasures, our Utah delegation looks the other way, allowing the quest for nonrenewable energy to downsize our monuments and destroy our wilderness.

Hmmm. Wouldn’t it would be interesting to see the campaign contributions from the oil and mining industries?

The Emery County Public Land Management Act is the latest Utah wilderness attack. This public land contains the Labyrinth Canyon, Muddy Creek and San Rafael Badlands, a breathtaking, unique area. The act would fail to protect an adequate amount of the 1.5 million wilderness acres in Emery County.

Utahns need to step up and let our state representatives know that this is not OK. We can do this by voting in “environmental friendly” candidates and calling or writing to our representatives.

It’s time to stop polluting and extracting nonrenewable energy and focus on creating cleaner, renewable energy. If we continue to allow drilling and mining to shrink our public lands, the long-term effects to our state will be irreparable.