The Difference Makers

For people like me who want to “make a difference,” the allure of public service is clear: by exercising political power, we have the ability to change the world in positive ways. Lately, however, I’ve been struck by how limiting that view can be. We tend to not only overstate our ability to effect change but the value of that change. Perhaps more importantly, we can overlook the valuable contributions of others.

Who, then, are the real difference makers? As I think back over my life, the difference makers are in many instances teachers, like Mr. Lyde, who taught me to love U.S. history, Jody Heaps, who inspired me to practice public speaking, and Bruce Porter, who challenged the way I thought about government and political power. The difference makers are religious leaders who encouraged and inspired me. The most profound ‘difference maker’ of all? My mother, who taught me to look for the good in others and in the world, to aim high, and to live deliberately. It would be one thing if she had that influence only on her own children, but she had that effect on many as a confidant and friend.

This past Friday, we welcomed another difference maker to the floor of the Utah House of Representatives. Donato “Dominic” Raimondo, one of the so-called “lost boys of South Sudan.” Orphaned by war as a boy, he walked hundreds of miles to a refugee camp in Kenya. He languished there for many years before eventually punching a lucky ticket out of there to Utah, where he began to build a life here. In 2016, he became a U.S. Citizen–a moment of such significance to him that he took on a new name: Donato. Today, he’s working hard and going to college, and he recently became the proud father to a beautiful baby girl. Almost as soon as he arrived in the United States, he began making and selling traditional crafts at art fairs. Why? Because he wanted to raise money to build a school in his home town of Loudo.

He told me that it was one of the great honors of his life to lead the Pledge of Allegiance on the House floor, but in truth we were honored by his presence, because he’s a difference maker–a doer, a giver–his contributions no less valuable because they are made quietly and out of the spotlight.

In short, each of us can be a difference maker by simply acting within our sphere of influence–no matter how small or large–to make the world better for our time in it. When we offer a helping hand, give a friend a shoulder to cry on, mentor a young person, volunteer to serve in our community, choose to meet hostility with kindness, and in a myriad other ways help and encourage others, we make the kind of difference that matters most.

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Understanding Bears Ears and the Antiquities Act

Political debates often coalesce around competing narratives that, too often, wind up far removed from the facts. Debates surrounding the Bears Ears National Monument exemplify this tendency. What I try to do below through a series of questions is to unpick some of those narratives and to clarify some of the facts–facts that point up the complexity of the issue and that undermine the over-simplified narratives that, sadly, often get amplified by the media. I do so with a particular goal in mind, namely this: to the extent we get wrapped up in debating false or exaggerated narratives, more fundamental goals like protecting natural resources and/or strengthening rural economies tend to fall by the wayside. In fact, we may even end up harming those goals because, in a very real sense, we start debating the wrong issues.

Are these landscapes worth protecting? Absolutely. Over the years, I’ve grown to love this landscape–not for its dramatic vistas (though it offers some of those) but rather for its “living museum” quality and the way it slowly yields its secrets to the patient and the persistent. The region lacks the dramatic, grand scale cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, some 30 miles to the East, but offers treasures of a less ostentatious sort: quiet canyons, soaring ravens, lonely mesas, crumbling, smaller-scale ruins perched on a cliff edge or tucked into a sandstone alcove, 700 year old fingerprints pressed into a piece of clay, brightly colored potsherds weathering away in the desert sun. This isn’t Zions, with its soaring canyon walls, Bryce with its ramparts of pastel towers, or Canyonlands with its infinite horizons and myriad overlooks. Points of interest here tend to be spread out, smaller, little known, and the coolest stuff may not be the most obvious: a random and ordinary-looking hill in this part of the world may be the remains of an ancient city. This path, a road built by an ancient people. This corn cob, the remains of an ancient meal. Fortunately, the distance of this area from population centers coupled with a lack of big, headliner attractions means a (relative) lack of people. That’s changing–a process that debates over the monument has only accelerated–and, sadly, all that increased interest and traffic threatens some of the very values that make this place special in the first place.

Are these landscapes–or at least a portion of them–worth protecting under the Antiquities Act? Yes! If the primary purpose of the Act is to protect antiquities generally (and its original impetus to protect Native American ruins and artifacts in particular), then creating a monument to protect the many archaeological resources in this area makes sense–far more sense, frankly, than many other monuments created in recent years to protect landscapes with nary an antiquity in sight. Of course, the analysis can’t end there, however. Legitimate questions remains as to the proper size and boundaries of such a monument, which brings us to the next set of questions …

Did President Trump act lawfully in cutting the size of the monument? How about President Obama in declaring such a large monument in the first place? Few people realize that the Antiquities Act itself is fairly simple and straightforward. It runs all of four paragraphs. You can read the entirety of it here in just a few minutes: https://www.nps.gov/history/local-law/anti1906.htm. Enacted in 1906 in an effort to protect archaeological resources in the southwestern United States from widespread looting by pothunters and treasure seekers, Section 1 of the Act imposes modest penalties–fines of “not more than five hundred dollars” and imprisonment of “not more than ninety days”–in an effort to protect such resources and other antiquities (like dinosaur bones) located on federal lands.

Those provisions are rarely invoked because other federal laws provide more robust protections for Indian ruins and dinosaur bones. The hotly disputed portion of the Antiquities Act comes in Section 2, which grants the President of the United States:  

The authority, in his discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments, and may reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected … .

That single sentence largely defines the terms of the legal debate over the actions of Presidents Obama and Trump as they relate to Bears Ears. Under a plain reading of the text, the act of “declaring a … national monument” falls within broad (but not unfettered) discretion given by Congress to the President. But does the word “declare” include the power to revise the boundaries of a monument designated by a prior President? If a President “declares” new boundaries–as several presidents before Trump have done–does that fall within the scope of his authority to “declare” a monument? How about to rescind a prior declaration? Finally, were the original boundaries as declared by President Obama “confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected”? That’s an important limitation on the President’s power. Was it honored with the original Obama declaration, the Trump revision, both, or neither? You decide. (By way of reference, you can read the Obama Declaration here: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/12/28/proclamation-establishment-bears-ears-national-monument and the Trump Declaration here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/12/04/presidential-proclamation-modifying-bears-ears-national-monument.)

A few additional questions to consider:

Is this all about energy? If you buy into the hype, this debate is about either a “big oil conspiracy to rape and pillage a sacred landscape” (at one extreme) or “securing the economic future for rural Utah” (at the other). In truth, it’s neither. Why? For starters, the energy development potential of lands that fell within the original Obama Declaration and that now fall outside the Monument boundaries is low (see here for a reasonably objective point of reference: https://naturalresources.utah.gov/dnr-newsfeed/very-little-energy-potential-within-bears-ears-national-monument), meaning two things: first, it can’t be a ‘big oil conspiracy’ because big oil is, quite simply, not all that interested (either in destroying artifacts generally or developing this area in particular); second, reducing the size of the monument boundaries can’t be the salvation of rural Utah because–again–the high paying energy jobs that might be expected if this landscape were rich in energy potential won’t materialize because that potential simply isn’t there.

If the energy issue is over-hyped than what is this really about? Having spent a lot of time involved in this issue in one way or the other over the years, my sense is that Bears Ears represents something of a proxy war over a range of issues: federal overreach, county roads (RS-2477) and OHV use, climate change, and rural economic development–at least those and maybe more. The point is this: it’s complicated, and a lot of different agendas push and pull the debate away from a productive discussion about how to best protect the resources in question and the quality of life of the people who live there.  

Did either President Obama’s declaration or President Trump’s declaration shift control of these lands from the federal control to state control? No. That’s an uninformed myth at best, a calculated distortion at worst. Neither declaration transferred so much as an inch of ground into or out of federal control. The sole debate involves the type of federal control and management, rather than federal v state or public v private control. Chances are that if someone makes such arguments about Bears Ears they are either (a) woefully misinformed, or (b) demagoguing the issue in an effort to manipulate your opinion. (That NEVER happens in public policy debates, right?!)

Are the lands that now fall outside the monument boundaries unprotected now that the boundaries have changed? No. All of the other federal laws and regulatory restrictions–NEPA, Wilderness Act, Endangered Species Act, Paleontological Resources Preservation Act, Archaeological Resources Protection Act, etc.–still apply. It simply means that protections associated with the Antiquities Act no longer apply. What does that mean in practice? It means that some of these lands are again open to applications to drill for oil or mine for minerals, subject to all other federal rules and regulations. Moreover, as we’ve already established, there really isn’t a lot potential for that on these lands, suggesting again that debates about energy are largely a sideshow.   

How were Native American perspectives considered in the process? Which Native American Voices? How should they be? This may be one of the most interesting aspects of the debate. Why? Because Native American voices are not uniform on the issue, nor do they have an equal claim to the federal (non-reservation) lands in question. The Native American group most directly affected by the monument designation–Navajos living in Utah–tend to oppose the original designation and to support the move to reduce the Monument’s size or eliminate it altogether. On the other hand, a fairly broad coalition of Native American tribes called the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, made up of the Hopi, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain, Zuni, and Ute Indian tribes, supported the original Obama designation and opposed the Trump designation that reduced the Monument’s size.

While perspectives on the Monument vary, so do cultural and historic ties to the Ancestral Puebloan ruins and artifacts that dot this landscape. The word “Anasazi” has fallen out of favor in recent years and with good reason, as it’s a Navajo word that means “ancient enemy.” The Navajo settled this region after the civilization that built the ruins vanished, and the Navajo must have, at some point in their history, had conflict with that civilization. Likely, the most direct descendants of those people are the present day Puebloan tribes, including two members of the Inter-Tribal Coalition, the Hopis and the Zunis. Given that, how much weight should their opinions carry? Should it trump the views of Navajos who live in closest proximity and who have at least a few hundred years worth of history of their own tied to this place? Those aren’t easy questions to answer.

Nor is it clear how Monument designation either helps or hinders Native American interests. This is one of the poorest regions in the continental United States. Large swaths of the Navajo Nation still lack access to basic necessities like running water. Given that, what benefits local Native Americans more: natural resource development, tourism, or resource protection? Which of those goals are favored (or disfavored) by a designation? Should any one of these goals be elevated at the expense of the the others?

Lastly, even if the goal is preservation of cultural history (antiquities), which level of designation best promotes that goal? While Monument status may preclude some types of development, it also encourages tourism and outdoor recreation, both of which can do plenty of damage to sensitive cultural resources over the long term, particularly as increasing numbers of ignorant (if well-meaning) tourists flood into this remote landscape with very few resources available to manage all of that new use. Many of the most popular ruins in this area are already all-but devoid of artifacts. (The better known, the more they tend to be “swept clean.”) Pristine petroglyph panels have become marred by graffiti. Foot traffic and “look, I’m in a ruin!” selfies threaten thousand year old adobe walls.   

That perspective is well-represented in this thoughtful op-ed published by Jim Stiles in the Denver Post last April: https://www.denverpost.com/2017/04/08/national-monument-status-is-not-enough-to-protect-bears-ears/

My point in all of this–again–is to point up some of the complexities associated with this debate and to undermine over-simplified narratives that tend to distort the real issues: how to we promote real and sustainable economic development, responsible energy development and tourism, and the preservation of priceless national and cultural treasures? Those goals are not mutually exclusive, though I fear superficial debates that either glorify or vilify monument status may jeopardize all of them. We can do better.  

Bears Ears and the Outdoor Retailers

Ancestral Puebloan ruin within the boundaries of the Bears Ears National Monument

After threats and rumblings about Utah’s public lands policies for years, a vanguard of outdoor retailers issued a Valentine’s Day ultimatum: “Agree with us or else.” Just two days later, the Outdoor Retailers (OR) announced that they would not return to Utah after the show’s contract expires in 2018 — a hair-trigger response that seems to confirm they never intended to engage in serious dialog in the first place.

In doing so, they removed themselves entirely from the debate over public lands in Utah. Perhaps that’s for the best if their approach to dialog means embracing over-simplified narratives and a perverse kind of public policy hostage taking: “Do what we want, or we’ll kill the hostage,” which in this instance is the many small businesses that depend on the biannual show.

Why such a drastic step? In the name of protecting public lands, says OR, and the public’s access to those lands. Ironically, however, few Utahns — from the governor on down — would argue with either goal. To cries of, “Keep public lands in public hands,” the vast majority of Utahns would answer, “Amen!”

Like so many who live here, I love our public lands. I’ve slithered through slot canyons, thrilled at the cry of the canyon wren and seen up close thousand-year-old fingerprints pressed into adobe walls — experiences no museum can replicate. My family and I have crisscrossed the state, including many of the spectacular natural areas that fall within the Bears Ears National Monument. We treasure those places and spaces, the kind that draw tourists from all over the world who seek the singular outdoor experiences to be found here — experiences that fuel the OR industry so determined to leave.

The trouble is that OR conflates support for public lands with support for top-down, coercive policies that often disregard meaningful local involvement or the need to balance environmental stewardship with legitimate needs for energy and rural economic development.

Energy jobs in Utah pay nearly double the average wage and, in rural areas like San Juan County, provide desperately needed income, tax revenue and social stability. Little wonder that many in those areas greet federal actions that limit or restrict those opportunities with resentment and outright hostility. Tourism and recreation create jobs, too, but often minimum-wage and seasonal ones. In reality, we need both, but that bespeaks a balance lost in OR’s strident condemnation of anything short of unequivocal support for a range of coercive and unilateral federal actions.

Can’t one believe in protecting Bears Ears but think that protection is best accomplished in ways that don’t involve expansive use of the Antiquities Act? That some of these places may need less publicity rather than more? That a push for some state control — or at least more effective state involvement — does not mean selling off our collective birthright to the highest bidder?

Apparently not, to OR’s way of thinking, which is why their voice won’t be missed. Shrilly condemning others or attempting to punish them without first trying to understand their perspective represents politics at its ugliest and worst.

Finally, the concept of “multiple use” isn’t just a slogan or a smoke-screen for efforts to degrade the environment. It’s an ethic woven into this landscape for millennia, an ethic we all participate in whether we want to or not. After all, the climbers, hikers and bikers in Utah who sport OR apparel and use OR gear will almost certainly traverse roads blazed by miners and loggers, driving cars run on oil drilled from deep beneath the red rock and, at the end of a long day, dine on beef reared on public lands.

The stark choice between protecting public lands and supporting policies that would destroy everything we hold dear is a false one. The question isn’t whether we protect these lands, but rather how we do so, and an honest dialogue on that score remains key to our future.

The OR show may leave the state, but its customers won’t. They’ll be drawn back again and again to these landscapes that beckon them, raw and wild, and to a state that remains heavily invested in protecting and promoting access to public lands.

Note: This originally appeared as an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune on Feb 21, 2017

Gratitude for Our Veterans

Grateful today for our Veterans, including my father and grandfather, uncles, and a brother and cousin who currently serve. We owe them–and all those who’ve been willing to risk life and limb in the service of our Country–a deep debt of gratitude. I was touched this week by a story I heard on the radio. In it, a man named Michael Reagan recalled an experience he had in Vietnam at age 19. Another soldier, Vincent Santaniello, lay dying in his arms. Just before he died, Vincent looked up at his friend and said, “Mike: I just want to go home.”

I found that story particularly poignant because my own son, roughly the same age, is halfway around the world at this moment. Fortunately, he’s not fighting a war, but sharing a message of peace, and we don’t spend days and nights tormented by the thought that a bullet or bomb could cut short his young life and erase his bright future.  So it tore at my heart strings to think of all the young men, who over the years since our Country’s founding have risked–and in millions of cases paid–the ultimate price for our freedoms. Many millions more did not have to pay that price, but emerged scarred, physically or emotionally. Even more have served, returned home unscathed, and gone on to lead everyday lives like the rest of us. In every case, however, we must honor those who, by signing up to serve, accept a level of risk to themselves that most of us would hesitate to shoulder. That’s a brave and noble act, worthy of our deepest respect and admiration.

Thank you to all our Veterans on this Veteran’s Day. We owe our liberty to you.

You can listen to the full story of Michael Reagan and Vincent Santaniello here:   http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2016/11/10/portrait-veterans-day. It’s worth a listen. 

Thank You!

Time to pack up the signs and roll up the sleeves again!

A heart felt thank you for putting your trust in me to represent you for another two years in the Utah legislature. I remain humbled by and grateful for that trust. Please know I feel the weight of that responsibility, and will do my level best to serve you.

Though it’s hard to predict how the next session will shape up, I suspect we’ll see bills dealing with medical marijuana, education funding, non-compete agreements, the death penalty, death with dignity (physician-assisted suicide), and much, much more. I have bill files open on several water, child custody, and professional licensing issues. Watch for updates here and on Facebook as well as announcements of Town Halls and other events.

Election Day Predictions

I want to go out on a limb and make a few bold predictions about the outcome of the election today:

(1) The sky will not fall;

(2) The Republic will endure;

(3) Nearly half of all Americans will believe that a bad actor won;

(4) A fair number on the winning side will feel a tinge of buyer’s remorse: “Couldn’t we have done better—nominated someone stronger?”;

(5) Gridlock will continue at the National level;

(6) None of the serious problems facing this Country will magically go away; and yet,

(7) Americans will find a way.

That last bit’s the key. The spirit of America is resilience: the greater the challenge, the greater our resolve. But we cannot accomplish great things as a Nation in perpetual war with each other: us v. them, the politics of division and derision, “A house divided against itself …” We must instead look for common ground, for principles that unite rather than divide, and we must devote ourselves to doing our own small part to weave stronger the fabric of this great political experiment we call “America.”

For my part, I commit to listen better, and to try to better understand perspectives that differ from my own. That’s what I promise to do in the spirit of making our Nation stronger. What will you do? What offering will you lay on the altar of liberty?

Happy Constitution Day!

Today we celebrate one of the most influential and enduring political documents ever written, one that set up an intricate system of checks and balances that reflects a deep mistrust of power and an abiding skepticism of human nature, even as it expresses a hopeful optimism in the ability of men and women to seek wisdom, embrace virtue, and ultimately govern themselves.