David DeMille

ddemille@thespectrum.com

Donald Trump’s surprise win Tuesday has conservative elected officials across southwestern Utah grinning at the thought the federal government could reverse course on public lands policy.

Environmental advocates, on the other hand, are left gritting their teeth.

For eight years, a majority of local government leaders have bucked against President Barack Obama’s administration on environmental policy, arguing that rules and regulations were thwarting economic development and limiting access.

Now they might get a chance to throw off the reins, Washington County Commissioner Alan Gardner said, suggesting the move could have profound impacts on local issues like management plan negotiations, mitigation requirements on construction projects and the proposed Northern Corridor roadway across the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve.

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“I’m really excited about the potential that’s out there,” Gardner said. “I think it does a lot to move our issues forward.”

Local elected leaders have been clear about their desire for changes, said Bryan Thiriot, executive director of the Five County Association of Governments, which administers a variety of programs across Washington, Iron, Kane, Paiute and Garfield counties.

“I think the officials here would like to see greater local control, move it away from the federal government and bring it closer to the people,” he said.

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Environmental advocates are bracing for what they expect to be a more challenging future, with many saying they were uncertain about how a Trump administration might approach the issue.

“Given Mr. Trump’s comments, it seems like this could be a very bad election for wilderness,” said Scott Groene, president of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

Still, Groene said, he expected his group and others would continue to have a voice and be a part of policy discussions.

“Utah wilderness advocates have survived and thrived for 30 years of administrative changes,” he said. “We will survive this one too, and so will public lands.”

Tom Butine, board president of Conserve Southwest Utah, said he expected the situation to be similar to "the Bush era, which also wasn't very friendly for the environment."

"We can understand why our local representatives may be drooling over the possibility of developing our public lands," he said. "We could only promise a significant counter movement from their constituents."

Public lands has been a contentious issue for decades in Utah, where about two-thirds of the land within the state are controlled by the federal government, but recent years have seen a resurgence of the type of resentment that fueled the “sagebrush rebellion” 30 years ago over the federal government’s right to own and manage its lands in western states.

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Utah passed a law in 2012 demanding the federal government give up about 31 million acres, or about 50 percent of the total area of the state, and became the first state to officially propose a transfer. The deadline they set, Dec. 31, 2014, has come and gone, but the effort has continued.

Trump and his surrogates suggested during the campaign that he doesn’t back the idea of a transfer , arguing states could end up turning around and selling the land.

But Gardner and others have argued that Trump could be more amenable as he learns more about the issue.

“I hope we get some better top-down administration change the perspective from what we’ve had the last eight years,” Gardner said. “It’s been more restrictions, more restrictions, more restrictions.”

The local public lands debate has largely shifted this year to the proposals for new national monuments, including one in southeastern Utah in the Bears Ears area, one in Arizona north of the Grand Canyon and one in southern Nevada at Gold Butte.

Those designations could come while Obama is still in office, but Gardner said the changeover in the White House could dispel worries about more in the future.

Follow David DeMille on Twitter,@SpectrumDeMille, and on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/SpectrumDeMille. Call him at 435-674-6261.

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