Herbert says Sec. Jewell offered assurances on monument: 'We are not the Clinton administration'

Gov. Gary Herbert said he spoke this month with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, who assured him that "we are not the Clinton administration," he said, and a national monument will not be designated in Utah without local input. The focus of that and future meetings with Jewell, Herbert said, is inviting her and President Barack Obama to visit Utah and see the state's conservation efforts already going "over and above" the Bears Ears. "We are trying to be good stewards of the Earth, and I believe that we are, in fact, very responsible citizens of Utah," Herbert told the editorial board for the Deseret News and KSL on Monday. But Jewell has stopped short of saying what the president intends for Bears Ears, a 1.9 million-acre landscape in San Juan County held in historical and religious significance for Native American communities. The site has been the subject of speculation and debate, with some calling for its preservation under the Antiquities Act and others wanting to protect it without prescriptive mandates from the White House. Herbert last week signed a resolution that he asked the Utah Legislature to consider during a special legislative session, challenging the president's authority to create a monument and calling for the state to take "all legal options" to avoid such a designation...more